Cassirer's Phenomenology of Culture

Ernst Cassirer claims in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms that the transcendental analysis of science, ethical freedom, and aesthetic and organic natural forms of Kant's three Critiques is extended to other forms of culture, such as language, myth, and art. In this way, Cassirer holds, the "critique of reason becomes the critique of culture." This claim tends to place Cassirer within the tradition of Neo-Kantianism. But this view is offset by Cassirer's further claim that his philosophy is based on a phenomenology of knowledge "as established and systematically grounded by Hegel." He also subscribes to Hegel's dictum that "the True is the whole." In order to achieve his philosophy of symbolic forms Cassirer joins Kantian transcendental method with Hegelian phenomenology. In so doing Cassirer replaces the idea of system with a conception of "systematic overview," which he connects to a theory of "basis phenomena," especially the basis phenomenon of the work (das Werk). This phenomenon allows him finally to conceive his philosophy of culture as a fulfillment of the Socratic pursuit of self-knowledge. In this way Cassirer's thought moves from an epistemology to a philosophical anthropology.