The Cultural Philosophy of Cassirer before and After Exile

Ernst Cassirer was born in 1874, in the German city of Breslau, into a Jewish family. He studied

at Marburg and began his philosophical career as a disciple of the neo-Kantian philosopher

Hermann Cohen. Later on, Cassirer deviated from the neo-Kantian philosophy and developed a

new philosophy of his own. The purpose of his philosophy was to describe the various

expressions of spirit such as language, myth, religion, art, ethics, and science, which are

symbolic forms through which man perceives reality.

The peak of Cassirer’s academic carrier came at the time he lived in Hamburg, where he was

given the position of a professor in the geisteswissenschaftliche faculty at the University of

Hamburg. There he taught from 1919 until 1933. In Hamburg, Cassirer became acquainted

with art historians Erwin Panofsky and Abi Warburg, who had founded the Warburg

Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliotek. All three scholars focused on the investigation of symbols,

ideas and images, as well as on the perception of these concepts in different cultural epochs. All

of them worked with the abundant materials on anthropological studies which were gathered

in the Warburg Library. These materials were thoroughly investigated by Cassirer and discussed

in his three-volume work The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, which was published in the 1920s.

The first volume, “Language,” was published in 1923, the second volume, “Mythical Thought,”

in 1925, and the third volume “The Phenomenology of Knowledge,” in 1929.

In 1933, on account of his Jewish origin, Cassirer had to go into exile. During his exile, he

was a lecturer at Oxford; afterwards professor at the Gothenburg University; afterwards visiting

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professor at Yale University; and finally, lecturer at Columbia University, where he worked until

his death in 1945.

Cassirer planned to produce another two volumes of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, which

would be devoted to the analysis of ethics and art as independent symbolic forms; but this plan

was never realized. Cassirer’s ideas about ethics and art, however, appear in many essays,

lectures and books which he published during his exile years. Furthermore, in Cassirer’s archive

were found numerous unfinished texts marked “Symbolic Forms, Volume IV.” These texts were

published only in 1995 by John Michael Krois and Donald Phillip Verene under the title The

Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms.

In this lecture, I will introduce the main ideas of the philosophy which Cassirer developed in The

Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Afterwards, relying on his previous writings, I will reconstruct

Cassirer’s ideas about art and ethics, which he began to develop in exile. I will present here the

concepts central for his philosophy, such as symbol and the phenomenon of expression

[Ausdruck]. I will use these concepts as a tool for explaining the development of ethics as well

as of art based on Cassirer’s philosophy. I will argue that both art and ethics are symbolic

forms, and that their development is interconnected.

I will also present the concept of Basis Phenomena that appeared in Cassirer’s unfinished work

The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms. In this work, he slightly changed his conception: in contrast

to his earlier works, here Cassirer attempted to stress the necessity of ethics for man’s

primordial perception, and to show that ethics had been present in the primal phenomena.

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LEBEN UND KULTUR

One of the major philosophical dilemmas that Cassirer intended to solve is the relation between

life and culture. Cassirer used the term “life” in many different senses and contexts. In a 1942

lecture, for example, he gave the following explanation: “Life, reality, being, existence are

nothing but different terms referring to one and the same fundamental fact. They are to be

understood as names of a process.” 1 In other words, life is a sense and intuition of life’s

process; it is unmediated knowledge and direct experience of existence. In contrast, culture,

along with spirit and intelligence, can be understood as a creative, symbolic, and meaning-

giving aspect of man’s being. It mediates immediate existence via words, images and concepts.

Cassirer argues that philosophy originates in the awareness of the gap between life and

culture. Philosophy has always sought to understand this gap and to resolve it. Cassirer holds

that the relation between culture and life is ambiguous. On the one hand, he regards culture as

a process of liberation from the immediacy of life, which makes the gap between life and

culture essential. On the other hand, Cassirer assumes that culture only seems to stand in

opposition to life, but in fact, the intuition of life is the very source of culture, without which

culture ceases to exist. This dual relation of culture to life – as being liberated from life and at

the same time as being necessarily connected to life – Cassirer explains using the concept of

symbol, which, in his philosophy, is of central importance.

Symbol has three functions, which emerge in the different stages of development. I will

present two of them: the function of expression and the function of representation. These two

1
Ernst Cassirer, “Language and Art II,” in Symbol, Myth and Culture: Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer 1935-
1945, ed. Donald Philip Verene (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 194.

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functions of symbol account for the dual relation between life and culture. In its function of

expression, the symbol is a manifestation of life. In its function of representation, the symbol is

a representation of life. We will see that myth as a cultural form originates from the function of

expression, while the emergence of the function of representation correlates with the

development of art and ethics.

The Concept of Symbol

A symbol has traditionally been viewed as a sign that represents (or stands for) something

else. “Symbol” means mediation; it differs from reality; it is a material object, an image, or a

word that is used to represent something different from itself. Both word and image imitate the

concrete experience of life but are not identified with life. To say that perception of reality is

symbolic is the same as saying that perception cannot reach either reality or true being, since it

can only apprehend symbols that represent reality. Cassirer, however, introduced another, new

meaning of symbol.

Cassirer asserted that the concept of symbol is identified with every kind of phenomenon in

which mediation is unified with immediacy, or meaning with sensory content. Symbol is not

something different from reality, or life; rather, the very structure of life is symbolic. Life

includes an aspect that necessarily goes beyond its material limits. In other words, life includes

both concreteness and transcendence.

This symbolic structure of life is identified with “the phenomenon of expression

[Ausdruck].” The primary function of symbol is, therefore, not representation but expression. In

expression, meaning and senses are not separated, although expressive meaning transcends

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sensory content. Expression is the intuition and the manifestation of life. The phenomenon of

expression is experienced as pure, immediate Erlebnis of life; and Erlebnis gives life to strictly

material content. It lies in the primordial level of perception. The phenomenon of expression is

also called ‘the original phenomenon’ [Urphänomen] of perception. In order to explain it, we

can look at the expression of face.

Cassirer contends that the original phenomenon “is pre-logical.” Therefore, Urphänomen

cannot be described directly. Words and concepts cannot describe it adequately. However, the

original phenomenon correlates directly with the mythical worldview. In fact, Cassirer

discovered this phenomenon while investigating mythical thinking.

Myth, for Cassirer, is not only a past stage of cultural development but the ground for all

further symbolic forms such as art, religion and science, which is always present in the

primordial level of perception. By analyzing mythical thought, Cassirer developed his original

concept of symbol: The inquiry into mythical consciousness led Cassirer to conclude that

symbol had not always been understood as a medium, and that in the mythical world, there

was no strict distinction between symbol and reality.

1. Mythical thought does not distinguish between a thing and an image, between a

sign and what is signifies, between a dream and reality. In mythical consciousness,

the role of symbol is not representative but real. A word or an image does not

represent something different from itself; it is not only medium but also the

exposition of reality. Thus, Cassirer wrote: “The ‘image’ does not represent the

‘thing’; it is the thing.” This identification is evident, for example, in magic spells,

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 which were widespread in the mythical world. To harm or to heal someone, adepts

of magic cults would use his image, since they assumed that the image and the

actual person were interconnected.

The other important characteristic of mythical worldview is the peculiar construction of the

intuition of space and time. In contrast to the modern homogenous space-time intuition,

mythical intuition is hierarchical. Mythical space-time intuition is based on the opposition

between sacred and profane. Sacred time and space have unique significance, and the profane

is a peripheral entity without special importance. The mythical-magical image carries within it

the distinction between the domain of the sacred and the domain of the profane; it has a

power to warn or to frighten, to prevent from approaching or touching. The feature of the

space-time intuition described by Cassirer has a direct relation on Panofsky’s conception of

perspective as a symbolic form. Panofsky pointed to the linear perspective constructions of the

Renaissance, which have been appropriated for the functional, homogeneous space intuition of

modern times, in contrast to the non-linear space vision of antiquity.

The hierarchical organization of intuition is connected to the central characteristic of

mythical worldview, which Cassirer called a mythical organic unity. In contrast to theoretical

consciousness, in organic unity the whole is not composed of its parts, but every part

represents the whole. One can say that, compared to the functional theoretical worldview, the

mythical world is structural. Man does not perceive distinct qualities – rather, he perceives

structure. Man obtains meaning by perceiving an inner unity of expression, its physiognomy.

Cassirer explains that the pure phenomenon of expression “makes itself known to be inwardly

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animated.” [“sich .. als ein innerlich-Beseeltes zu erkennen gibt”]. The primordial moment of

perception does not perceive things; it discovers physiognomic characteristics of life.

In his meditations on the organic structure of expression, Cassirer turned his attention to

the works of the Italian philosopher Tito Vignoli,2 who, in turn, had a strong influence on

Warburg’s ideas about “the archetypal forms of expression.” Vignoli arrived at the radical

conclusion that perception is personification. Life is primarily perceived and experienced as

filled with living beings. Thus, Vignoli wrote: “Apprehension is the act, both in animals and in

man, by which the spontaneous and immediate animation of things and of phenomena is

accomplished.” Animals, children, and savages, according to Vignoli, perceive everything as

similar to their own structure. Since every emotion, event, or physical object is perceived as a

living organism, we can observe in myth the personifications of natural phenomena and

emotions. Only by progressing in theoretical understanding does a child, as well as a mythical

man, learn to make a distinction between living beings and inanimate objects.

Mythological thinking, as we have already said, is an essential factor in perception. This,

however, gives rise to a serious problem for ethics. The phenomenon of expression is the

receptive immediate experience of life, which is prior to self-consciousness. Mythical

consciousness is not aware of itself as an I, which is the center for its actions. Cassirer assumes

that the awareness of “I” as a center for man’s action and perception appears during later

stages of cultural development. Indeed, the modern sense of ethics is anchored in man’s

2
Tito Vignoli, Mito e Scienza [1879]. Eng. trans., Myth and Science (New York, 1882). International Scientific
Series, Vol. 38, trans. Kegan Paul, 3rd ed. (London: Trench, 1885). http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17802.

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awareness of himself as a free agent who is able to act in either a wrong or a right way.

Therefore, ethics was linked to a gradual separation of man’s thinking from the world of myth.

The emergence of ethics is a correlate to the emergence of a new function of symbol --

representation. In contrast to expression, representation requires an awareness of the

difference between immediacy and symbols. Once man realized that symbols are not part of

reality but offshoots of himself, he began to perceive himself as a substance different from the

world. This argument can be reversed. Both language and art are tools whereby man began to

see himself as different from reality. However, while language, by elevating man to a level of

complicated theoretical thinking, alienates him from the immediate experience, art expresses

such experience, or intuition.

Art plays a special intermediate role in the transition from expression to representation. It

partakes of both expression and representation. On the one hand, art is connected to primal

intuition – to the mythical-expressive Erlebnis of life. On the other hand, art strives to free itself

from its dependence on life. Art liberates image from mythical-magical power. It leads from an

idol to an icon. To the extent that art seeks to create meaning that lies in itself rather than in

the world, it destroys the identity between image and reality, and gradually frees itself from

sensory experience.

[This oscillation is elaborated in Panofsky’s book titled Idea. Panofsky examined the

conception of the idea in art, moving from the mimetic art of antiquity to the highly spiritual

medieval art; thence, again to the mimetic conception of the Renaissance; and subsequently, to

the idealistic conception of mannerism. This wavering between the imitation of life to the

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divorce from life, as it were, displays a dialectical relation between intuition and life, or also

between life and spirit. Art can never totally break away from life, which is its source: as soon

as it moves too far away from life, it must come back to its source, while always remaining

connected to intuition.]

Basis Phenomena (Primary phenomenon)

So, now, in the last part of the lecture, we come back to the problem of ethics. As has been

said, early mythical thinking is devoid of ethics. Cassirer, however, believed that ethics has

unconditional universal values. He believed that ethics is integrated into human nature and is

inherent to it. This belief led Cassirer to modify his philosophy. During the 1930s, he began to

develop new ideas about ethics. Cassirer attempted to solve the problem of ethics in his text

On Basis Phenomena, which was posthumously published in The Metaphysics of Symbolic

Forms. In this text, he introduced the basis phenomena as a basis for both theoretical and

practical knowledge. These phenomena comprise three aspects, each of which Cassirer named

the primary phenomenon.

Cassirer took the concept of the primary phenomenon [Ürphenomen] from Goethe’s

Maxims. In contrast to the impersonal, original phenomenon of expression, the first aspect of

the basis phenomena is the "I" aspect, from which emerge both perception and action. I-

phenomenon [Ich-Phänomen], is the endless movement of monad and life itself. Cassirer

suggested that the I-phenomenon could be described in a vitalistic way, or as the phenomenon

of self-consciousness, or in the transcendental sense. The second aspect of the basis

phenomena is the phenomenon of “action and reaction” [Wirkens-Phänomen]. Experience of

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influence and action leads to the awareness of the interconnection between the “I-aspect” and

the other as “You”. Cassirer aimed to reveal the structure of consciousness, where perception

– or as he also called it, “consciousness of reality” – comes together with consciousness of

interaction, action, and influence, from which ethical relation arises. Theoretical knowledge and

ethics appeared concomitantly, and their appearance was interrelated. The perception of the

other as “You” comes together with the awareness of the self and is essential for the

perception of objectivity. The monad encounters another animated reality that is acting and

reacting, and that has its own will. This other will puts a limit on the monad’s will, and only by

means of this restriction is one’s own individual self created and defined.

The third aspect of the basis phenomena is the phenomenon of “work” [Werk-Phänomen];

it is the movement of action that “has found expression in a work.” Work is something

objective. It is something finished. In so far as work is based on action and will of the ‘I,’ ethics

precedes work. Compared to the receptive character of the phenomenon of expression, here

an essential characteristic of the basis phenomena is action. Creative powers had already been

present in the primal phenomenon of action, before it assumed an independent form.

The deployment of the basis phenomena in Cassirer’s work remained unaccomplished.

Cassirer, however, showed the direction of his thought. Basis phenomena are the ground of

man’s being, where ethics and perception are interconnected.

In this talk, I have demonstrated Cassirer’s philosophical project. Cassirer aimed to revise the

tradition which posits an antithesis between the immediate experience of life and the

theoretical explanation of existence. I argued that Cassirer provides a new understanding of this

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antithesis. The conflict between spirit and life was resolved by symbol in which meaning is

organically integrated with life. By the research of mythical consciousness, Cassirer inferred

that it is through the phenomenon of expression that the intuition of life is manifested. World

of expression, however, comes into conflict with the possibility of ethics. Therefore, Cassirer

changed his conception: if in the third volume, he described the phenomenon of expression as

prior to ethics, in his later work he sought to stress the necessity of ethics for man’s primordial

perception. Cassirer attempted to show that ethics precedes any other cultural activity and

work.

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