The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer and Fictional Religion

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ERNST CASSIRER AND FICTIONAL RELIGION NYONE FAMILIAR with the history of philosophy in this century will know that some of the most influential philosophers have been those who have considered that the right knowledge and use of language will solve world problems; in fact, some even believe language to be the only reality, which "creates" the world which we think we see as "given." Even the logical (sometimes called mathematical) positivists may be included in this group, if we consider mathematical symbols as a kind of language: it is their conviction that ordinary language, though very important, is somewhat ambiguous and in need of extended supplementation by the more exact symbpls of mathematics. The ontological status of mathematics and the other sciences as well as language has been argued at great length, but an important group of philosophers of this century has decided that such an argument is futile, since the important thing for all such symbols is not their reference to an objective truth (if indeed such exists) but their function. In other words, do they enable us more efficiently and satisfactorily to live our lives? Perhaps the most learned philosopher in this century to emphasize the problem of linguistic and other symbols was Ernst Cassirer, a German refugee who spent the last four years of his life (after two years in England and six in Sweden) lecturing and writing in America until his death in 1945. Cassirer vigorously denounced the positivists, and, though he never mentioned Vaihinger, he would surely have denounced Vaihinger's "idealistic positivism " as it is expressed in the theory of fictions. This failure to mention Vaihinger is a little hard to understand, since both men were important modern professors and philosophers in Germany (their careers to some extent overlapping, though 787 73S HARRY M. CAMPBELL Vaihinger was much older) and since both wrote extensively on Kant. Their views, furthermore, as it shall be the purpose of this essay to demonstrate, were basically very similar, in spite of Cassirer's repeated denial that his system of idealism should be construed as mental fictions. The discussion of Cassirer's philosophy in this essay will be based on three of his works: Language and Myth/ An Essay on Man/ and The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms,3 the first two of these being popular and condensed versions of the last, which is his magnum opus in three volumes. His system is usually called a kind of modified philosophical idealism (cf. Professor Charles W. Hendel's Introduction the PSF I), but, as I shall demonstrate later, the modification is little more than an occasional brief and unemphatic reference to an objectivity that is soon forgotten in the all-embracing creative activity attributed to the human spirit and expressed through language. Perhaps it might be said that he always recognizes a certain amount of objective reality in the material world, but the noumenal world exists only as the creation (or "objectification ") of the human spirit (always expressed through some form of language) . In the beginning one may wonder why he lists language as parallel with myth, art, and science, sometimes adding religion as a fifth " cultural form." It would seem, one might suppose, more logical to subordinate language as the instrument through which most aspects of the other " cultural forms " are expressed . It is soon clear, however, that he wishes to exalt language as a creative force .equivalent, as an expression of the human spirit (in modem terms, of course), to the Greek Logos and the Christian Word. Indeed, in some respects, language is supreme among the forms, because myth (which includes religion) and science are types of language, as, from one point 1 New York: Dover Publications, n. d., hereafter referred to as LM. 8 Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, n. d., hereafter referred to as EM. 3 New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958 (for Vol. I), 1955 (for Vol. II), 1957 (for Vol. III), hereafter referred to as PSF. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ERNST CASSIRER 739 of view, is art. Language, furthermore, is the source of what we call reasoning, as Mrs. Susanne Langer, one of Cassirer's most ardent disciples and interpreters in...