Ernst Cassirer: A "Repetition" of Modernity

273 Pages·2000·1.089 MB·English

by  S. G. Lofts (Author), John Michael Krois (Foreword)

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title: Ernst Cassirer : A "Repetition" of Modernity SUNY Series
in Contemporary Continental Philosophy
author: Lofts, Steve G.
publisher: State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin: 0791444961
print isbn13: 9780791444962
ebook isbn13: 9780585362915
language: English
subject Cassirer, Ernst,--1874-1945.
publication date: 2000
lcc: B3216.C34L64 2000eb
ddc: 193
subject: Cassirer, Ernst,--1874-1945.
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Ernst Cassirer

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title: Ernst Cassirer : A "Repetition" of Modernity SUNY Series
in Contemporary Continental Philosophy
author: Lofts, Steve G.
publisher: State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin: 0791444961
print isbn13: 9780791444962
ebook isbn13: 9780585362915
language: English
subject Cassirer, Ernst,--1874-1945.
publication date: 2000
lcc: B3216.C34L64 2000eb
ddc: 193
subject: Cassirer, Ernst,--1874-1945.
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SUNY series in
Contemporary Continental Philosophy
Dennis J. Schmidt, editor

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Ernst Cassirer
A "Repetition" of Modernity
S. G. Lofts
Foreword by
John Michael Krois

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Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2000 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of
this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic,
electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in
writing of the publisher.
For information, address the State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246
Production by Kristin Milavec
Marketing by Patrick Durocher
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lofts, Steve G., 1959
Ernst Cassirer : a "repetition" of modernity / S. G. Lofts :
foreword by John Michael Krois.
p. cm. (SUNY series in contemporary continental
philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-4495-3 (hardcover : alk. paper). ISBN 0-7914-4496-1
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Cassirer, Ernst, 18741945. I. Title. II. Series.
B3216.C34L64 2000
193dc21 99-39699
CIP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Pour
Jacqueline et Jean-Louis Bustin
en tout amitié

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Contents
Foreword: A Reading of the Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer,
John Michael Krois ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of Abbreviations and References xiii
Introduction: The Strategy of Reading . . . 1
1
The "Crisis" in the Project of Rationality 23
2
The Structure of the Symbolic Function as the Function of Structure 35
3
Language: The "Genesis" of Signification and the Aufbau of the Objective World 61
4
Myth as the Other of Logos or the Texture of the Real: The Presence of Meaning as
the Meaning of Presence 85
5
Religion: The "Logic of Absurdity" and the Intuition of the Real 125
6
Science: The Writing of a Lingua Universalis 161
7
Art: The "Eye of Spirit" and the "Cloak of Reality" 183
Conclusion: Cassirer's Metaphysics of the Symbolic Forms 201
Notes 223
Bibliography 241
Index 261

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Foreword:
A Reading of the Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer
Steve Lofts' interpretation of Cassirer's philosophy as developed in this book, derives from his reading of Cassirer's
philosophy of symbolic forms in the context of contemporary continental philosophy, and in particular as a form
of structuralism avant la lettre. Without resorting to an ahistorical textual interpretation, or subsuming Cassirer's
philosophy under the rubric of a philosophical school (e.g., neo-Kantianism) Lofts has read and reread Cassirer
(and this means a lot of reading), thinking while he reads, and treating Cassirer as a thinker in his own right. In his
work he guides the reader through the labyrinth of Cassirer's oeuvre. We discover in the course of our odyssey a
very different Cassirer than the one we are accustomed too. We discover a Cassirer who was acutely aware of the
historical and cultural changes we glibly call postmodernity, who's philosophical enterprise was to reaffirm and
transform the project of modernity in such a way as to overcome its traditional shortcomings. Many of the topics
that have become the acknowledged focal point of both the continental and analytic directions of philosophy prove
to be central to Cassirer's

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philosophy of symbolic forms. It is to the author's credit to have shown, without doing violence to Cassirer's work
or losing sight of what renders it unique, that this thoroughly modern thinker still has something to contribute to
the contemporary philosophical debate.
In the past, the breadth Cassirer's conception of culture has often led to a superficial, piecemeal reception of his
thought. As a result the systematic unity of his philosophy of culture and symbolic forms has been largely
overlooked. In Lofts' study, particular topics are treated in relation to one another through an underlying systematic
unity of culture; the chapters on art and religion are outstanding examples of this. Lofts' reading moves from one
element or stage in the symbolic process of cultural meaning to another, bringing to the foreground the internal
systematic unity of this process. The philosophical implications of Cassirer's acclaimed investigations into the
Renaissance and the Enlightenment and the historical orientation of his thought have yet to be sufficiently
understood. The emphasis that is placed throughout this work upon the historicity of being demonstrates once and
for all that Cassirer was a philosopher of historicity and not a historian of philosophy. In one of the best analyses
yet of Cassirer's metaphysics of the symbolic form, we discover in the conclusion of this work that Cassirer was a
thoroughly speculative and even dialectical thinker.
By taking Cassirer's works in their own terms, Lofts has shown that the philosophy of symbolic forms embodied a
new kind of thinking whose importance we are only now becoming able to recognize in light of subsequent
developments in philosophy and cultural studies.
JOHN MICHAEL KROIS

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