Nevertheless this is the situation we’re in: if we know ourselves, then we might be able to know how to cultivate ourselves, but if we don’t know ourselves, we’ll never know how.
— Socrates in Alcibiades
Cassirer is concerned not only with what the basis phenomena are but also with what philosophy is as an activity that arises from the basis phenomena. He presents both the history of philosophy and his own philosophy as manifestations of these phenomena. He conceives of different types of philosophy as arising from different basis phenomena. Cassirer claims that other philosophies of fer one-sided perspectives on reality, whereas the metaphysics of symbolic forms preserves reality’s tripartite basis.
In the introduction to the text on basis phenomena, Cassirer states that the proper goal of philosophy is to grasp relative truth. The introduction is an account of the attempts in the history of thought to secure truth and objectivity. Cassirer rejects all attempts at securing or grounding truth that absolutize one aspect of human experience. He rejects absolute methods based on logic, physics, immediacy, belief, and skepticism andproposes a critical method to replace them. Cassirer claims, however, that truth itself should not be rejected, because philosophy uncovers how the various forms of experience are true in relation to one another.
The truth value of expression, and by implication, of perception, is not accessible through the methods of logic. The use of logic alone leads to incomplete and even absurd statements concerning reality. Cassirer says, There can be no formal, syllogistic proof of the ‘birthright’ (quid juris) of the expressive function [Ausdrucks funktion]. Logically, ‘Solipsism’ is a’possible’ attitude and yet in practice it is nonetheless ‘absurd’” (123; 120). Logical methods are insufficient to produce a full understanding of human experience. Logical methods used alone isolate and absolutize one feature of experience and thereby distort truth.
Nor can the physical sciences ground human reality. Cassirer says that, in physics, we cannot meaningfully inquire into any kind of being except physical being” (123; 119). Physics does not investigate the human meaning of experience. The issue of distinctively human reality lies outside of physics: We can only conclude that it is not possible to make this meaning visible from the standpoint of physics and through its methods” (122; 118).
Physicalism takes physical being as absolute and uses the physical sciences to study this absolute reality. Such study implies the experiences of both self and others but does not incorporate them into its field of vision; it views them as “physically insignificant (something understood that goes without saying) that can be left aside in all physical statements ( bracketed out’)” (126; 122). The problem of grasping all of human truth is not solved through the physical sciences. Cassirer discusses this point in The Logic of the Cultural Sciences: “This problem belongs, if we take it in its full generality, to a sphere that cannot itself be grasped and exhausted by science even taken as a whole.”1 The methods of behaviorism are those of physical-ism; behaviorism cannot explain the distinctive character of the human experience and its truth.
1. LCS, 18.
Cassirer rejects the attempts of metaphysical theories of immediacy to secure truth. The truths of expression and perception cannot be understood through immediate knowledge, because immediate knowledge is isolating and absolutizing. Isolating common sense or intuition as the sole and absolute method of obtaining truth is a mistake. Immediacy, the leap into the metaphysics of immediate knowledge,’ either in terms of common sense’ (cf. Reid) or of metaphysical intuitionism,’” is the view that physical things do not belong to human truth, that the so-called world of things (physics, physicalism) is an illusion of ‘science’” (124; 120). Physicalism and immediacy deny each other’s position and are opposites; such opposites are merely aspects of the problem and do not overcome it.
Cassirer rejects the possibility of securing truth through belief. Belief takes an absolute stand on the problem of reality; it is one of the ‘“absolute’ solutions” (120; 117). Cassirer says that “’belief’ in the religious-intuitive sense as the final grounds of certainty, something that cannot be attained by any kind of ‘knowledge’” (119; 117), denies that other means of knowledge have access to being. Belief alone cannot ground human reality.
A different but similarly absolute view of truth is the skeptical view. Unlike logicism, physicalism, and belief, skepticism maintains that truth cannot be secured. Like the former views, skepticism holds an absolutizing position. Cassirer says: (No function is to be trusted, if it can fool us even once.) Since therefore the absolute’ truth of what is supposedly true ( taken for true’ in perception) can never be secured, we are now left with absolute illusion”(116-17; 114). Cassirer claims instead that truth in general cannot be absolutely denied, that we cannot eliminate it or skeptically deny it completely” (123; 120). A claim of absolute skepticism is itself a truth claim.
Cassirer rejects absolute methods for grounding reality in favor of a critical method of relative truth. The claim by skepticism that the expressive function is false and the claim by absolutizing metaphysics that the expressive function is exclusively true are both confuted by critique. Cassirer says, “Our standpoint [is] ‘critical’: we upholdneither the falsity (skepticism) nor the truth (metaphysics) of the expressive function. Rather, we seek to limit critically and justify critically its achievements in the construction of the ‘cultural world’” (124; 121). The expressive function of consciousness produces culture from immediacy, but expression is not absolute; it does not have a meaning in itself apart from the forms of cultural life that arise from it, limit it, and standin various relations to one another.
The only refutation of the notion of absolute truth is the notion of relative truth. Cassirer says, “We do not need ‘absolute’ truth; rather, in fact, we need relative truth. We don’t need ‘being-true’ (= a mirror image of an absolute true being); we need ‘being truer’ [das ‘wahrer‘ sein], an expression of the whole of experience” (117; 114). Cassirer’s philosophy is a philosophy of experience, not being. The existence of experience is a single indisputable fact, yet the forms of experience are relative to one another.
The truth of perception is not denied in this critical approach to truth and objectivity: “It does not ask about the ‘truth’ of perception as a whole. It asks about the place of each particular perception [’Wahrnehmung‘] within the whole, in the ‘context of experience.’ This context, the ‘system,’ does not need to have its truth demonstrated or ‘tested’—it is the measure, not what is measured” (120; 117). The whole of experience is the measure of truth. Particular experiences or perceptions are measuredagainst this whole. Cassirer says, “Every individual perception must be measured with in this whole and tested if it is ‘true’ or ‘false’” (120; 117).
The goal of philosophy is to understand all of experience. Each particular form of experience is relative to others; truth does exist, however, in human culture understood as a whole. Cassirer is not a relativist who claims that all theories of experience are equally acceptable; he argues instead that the critical view of experience recognizes both the relative and the fundamental characteristics of human reality.
Cassirer is concerned with our access to the nature of the basis phenomena, how deeply and fully we can know the basis phenomena themselves. He discusses two conflicting views of our access to them and proposes a resolution. The dispute is between the Goe thean and the Cartesian-Kantian views of knowledge and is resolvedin part by the Socratic view of philosophy.
Goethe maintains that the nature of the basis phenomena is inaccessible. Goethe’s account of the basis phenomena stresses their ultimate mystery and our limited knowledge of their nature. In maxim 391, Goe the says that life (Leben), the first basis phenomenon, is a mystery to all human beings, that life’s specific nature remains a mystery to ourselves and to others” (127; 123). Cassirer highlights this feature of life in his interpretation of Goethe’s sense of life: We must take it as a primary phenomenon [Urphànomen] without attempting to give an ‘explanation’ of it. Must I not also simply accept (admit) myself in-sofarasthe monas remains unknown, but not a ‘mysterium’? It is, rather, unknown and revealedto all, the primary revelation itself” (128; 123). As the primary revelation, in Goe the’s view, life is equally unknowable to the self andothers.
In maxim 392, Goethe describes activity in the surrounding world, the second basis phenomenon, as similarly mysterious. Goethe says: Although it requires a predisposition, attention, andluck, we can become clear ourselves about what we experience; but to others it remains a mystery” (127; 123). One’s own activity can be understood by oneself but not by others. Access to the secondbasis phenomenon is limitedto the individual. Cassirer notes this limitation of Goethe’s view: In its regard for others, mankindobserves the first clarification about itself” (129; 124). An individual’s activity is inaccessible and mysterious to others.
Goethe’s notion of the work, the thirdbasis phenomenon, also exhibits a mysterious nature. In this case, the mystery resides in the selfand the access belongs to others. Goethe’s maxim 393 describes one’s work as more understandable to others than to oneself; the outer world can more readily attain an understanding about it than we ourselves are able to” (127; 123). In regard to this aspect of Goethe’s view, Cassirer says, “But here a strange turnabout [takes place]. These works no longer belong to us…. The ‘I’can no longer really find itself again in it”; and they are also no longer recognizable in full measure. For the being of the works outlives that of their creator” (130; 125). Through our works, others know us better than we know ourselves. The self’s works remain a mystery to it.
The nature of the basis phenomena is not explainable, according to Goethe, because such an explanation is unnatural and mere supposition. The mindloses its own identity in any attempt to achieve a deep knowledge of the basis phenomena. Cassirer points out that Goethe insists on the mystery of the basis phenomena because he wants to retain the natural’ attitude of spirit that he feels so close to as an artist. Art requires no metaphysical’ depth—it must protect itself from this supposed deepness. It must be on its guard against it in sofar as it does not want to lose itself. For it is concerned with the surface’ of the phenomena, the ‘many-huedreflection’ of life. Goethe wants to preserve this standpoint even as a thinker” (131-32; 126).
Because they are the ultimate ground of knowledge, the basis phenomena cannot be known by means of some further point. Not conceivable as objects, they cannot be viewed from an external perspective. Goethe thus denies the accessibility of the basis phenomena to human knowledge: “He protests against every attempt to go behind the primary phenomena—against every attempt to ‘explain’ them” (132; 126).
In contrast to the Goethean view is what Cassirer calls the Cartesian-Kantian view. This view is not poetic. It focuses on the demand for knowledge that arises from philosophy as an activity of reflective understanding. Once philosophical thought begins in human experience, all aspects of reality are open to question. Cassirer says, “From now on nothing escapes from the sphere of questioning” (135; 129). Philosophy be comes enamored with and defined by reflection andcriticism: “The onset of ‘reflection’ has thereby begun—and it stops now at nothing, at no last things.’ It subjects everything to its corrosive criticism.’ Philosophy, at least, was henceforth addicted to this criticism and it cannot protect itself from it without forfeiting its own nature” (135; 129-30). Scholasticism was the extreme manifestation of this addiction; it was a kind of bastard birth (the scholastic ‘systems’ of Nominalism and Realism)” (135; 130).
The Scholasticism of the Middle Ages represented the attempt to unify reason and belief; critical philosophy, embodied in the thought of Descartes and Kant, dissolved this union. Cassirer says, “The spirit of criticism in Descartes and in Kant dissolves this marriage,’ and it leads to sharper forms of questioning and of doubting. Criticism extends to the limits of skepticism: de omnibus dubitandum. . . . Doubt is the positive instrument of knowledge and expresses the function of philosophical knowledge” (135; 130). The philosophy of criticism and doubt is a positive result.
Cassirer’s concern is to resolve this conflict between the Goe-thean natural attitude and the Cartesian-Kantian reflective standpoint. For any position to be true to the natures of the basis phenomena, both their proper limitations and their possible depth must be recognized. An account of the basis phenomena must neither overstep its limits nor stop short of its possibilities. The conflict thus bears directly on the success of Cassirer’s project. He asks, “How can we do justice to the Goe-thean demand for the recognition of primary phenomena’ and to the Cartesian-Kantian demand for ‘reflection’ in knowledge andphilosophy?” (136; 130). Cassirer states that all well-known oppositions in philosophy can be traced to this conflict. The antinomy between the notions of immediacy and mediacy is at the base of this dispute.
Cassirer asks, “Is there away to reconcile them, which is more than—and principally different from — an eclectic mixture? Can we preserve respect for the primary phenomena, without acting in opposition to the critical spirit, without becoming guilty of sinning against spirit, which occurs when we deny its original right?” (136; 131). Spirit or intellect has a right to its autonomy; however, if this autonomy is exercised beyond its actual powers, the results are deceptive and false.
Cassirer finds some truth on both sides of the conflict. He agrees with Goethe regarding the irreducible primary nature of the basis phenomena. After giving an overview of his own notion of the basis phenomena, Cassirer says, Here we have the three primary phenomena (basis phenomena) before us, for which we ourselves cannot give any further explanation’ and cannot want to” (142; 137). Since the basis phenomena make possible all explanation, thought, and inference, nothing further can be given that would explain the basis phenomena or why they exist.
In his lecture Language and Art II” Cassirer mentions the Goethean sense of life as a primary phenomenon that has no rational explanation. Cassirer says, We cannot explain it, if explanation means the reduction of an unknown fact to a better-known fact, for there is no better-known fact. We can neither give a logical definition of life—per genus proximum et differ-tiam specificam — nor can we find out the origin, the first cause of life.”2 Cassirer holds that no abstract, logical, or causal definition of the origin can be given.
In the text on basis phenomena Cassirer claims that none of the three equally primordial basis phenomena can be fully known. Knowledge of these most fundamental features of human reality can only be referred to, not known as such. In The Logic of the Cultural Sciences Cassirer states, “It is clear that the process of grounding cannot go on into infinity, that we must in the end come across something that is ‘showable’ [aufweis-bar] but not provable [beweisbar].”3 In this sense Cassirer agrees with the Goethean view concerning the irreducible nature of the basis phenomena.
He also agrees with the Cartesian-Kantian view of the activity of knowledge. It is essential that knowledge should attempt to penetrate, unravel, and define its object. The mind becomes itself in such attempts. Cassirer asks, “But is such an attitude, as Goethe demands it of the artist and practices it himself, possible for the whole of our spiritual life?” (133; 127). Cassirer’s answer is No. The function of questioning is a primary and characteristic function of the intellect. This function cannot be rejected by philosophy.
2. “Language and Art II,” in Symbol, Myth, and Culture, 194.
3. LCS, 44.
Cassirer’s acceptance of the Cartesian-Kantian philosophical view is not, however, a complete acceptance. The intellect can go astray in its questioning and its findings. Cassirer asks, “Where do we find limits here—where is our protection against the ‘busy Procuress Understanding’ [den tàtigen Kuppler Verstand’]?” (133; 127). Thus in the end Cassirer does not fully accept either the Goethean or the Cartesian-Kantian view of human knowledge.
The dispute between the Goethean and the Cartesian-Kantian attitudes is Cassirer’s version of the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy. For Goethe, poetry or artistry is interestedin surfaces and representations; it is concerned with the ‘surface’ of the phenomena” (131; 126). Goethe is a poet: Goethe is no systematic philosopher; he does not want to unveil and reveal the nature of the absolute” (132; 126). Philosophy, in contrast, is interested in the construction of absolute concepts. The quarrel exists between poetry as artistic representation and philosophy as absolutizing, reflective reason.
Cassirer endeavors to overcome the quarrel by educing the positive, genuine features of both art and reason. On the one hand, if art is defined as feeling, it is valuable for philosophical activity. Cassirer says that Goethe has an incomparable feeling for the primary phenomena So we can use him as the true divining rod that can lead us to the hidden treasure of the primary phenomena” (132; 126). The poet brings the necessary human dimension of feeling to philosophy. Poetry provides access to human reality.
On the other hand, if reason is defined as essential questioning, it too is necessary for philosophical activity. Questions about human origins and ends are proper to philosophy, whereas the absolutizing constructions of reason are detrimental to philosophy. For Cassirer the ancient quarrel between poetry andphilosophy is actually a quarrel between artistic representation and absolutizing reason; his philosophy unites both poetic feeling and questioning reason in its search for an understanding of all human reality.
The successful philosophical unification of art and reason is found, according to Cassirer, in Socrates. Socratic thought is the origin and essence of philosophical questioning. Philosophy originates in the question of reality. Cassirer says, It begins with the question of [what is]. That is the onset of the Socratic concept, the onset of reflection” (133; 127). Wonder is the impetus for philosophy.
Philosophical thought is a particularly human achievement. The quality of human life depends on its questioning activity. Cassirer says, “The transfiguration of ‘life’ through the form of the ‘question’: that is the specifically Socratic achievement. This is what gives life its value: [ Life without… examination is not worth living’]” (133; 127). Human beings are the only living beings capable of such reasoned examination.
Socratic ignorance incorporates the Goethean attitude to-wardknowledge. One must recognize and accept the limitations of individual knowledge, and doubt and explore the claims others make to knowledge. Not knowing is essential to the concept of philosophy. In The Logic of the Cultural Sciences Cassirer mentions the value of Socratic ignorance and says, One needs only to think of its [philosophy’s] most significant and fruitful periods in order to realize what an important and indispensable role not-knowing has played in them and how, time and again, knowledge was able to find and renew itself only by means of it.”4 Ignorance presents the opportunity to recognize limitations and to discover the possibilities of knowledge.
4. LCS, 100.
Cassirer compares Sophistic and Socratic questioning about origins and ends. Both the Sophists and Socrates ask about human reality; they regard human reality as something which we need to raise questions about and which it is worth raising questions about” (135; 129). Both place value on the examination of existence. The Sophists differ from Socrates in their sense of origin. The Sophistic question of the origins of morality stems from a historical, causal sense of origin. Morality is based only on its historical development rather than on an unchanging human realm. The Socratic question, however, seeks not a historical cause but a final cause. Cassirer says, “Socratic ‘reflection’ is not satisfied with this kind of foundation and explanation. It looks for ‘another kind of cause’… inits ‘end,’ in its telos” (135; 129). The essential, proper, and characteristically philosophical issue is final cause, or the relation of origins and ends.
In sum, in Cassirer’s philosophy the three basis phenomena are the original sources of human reality. Philosophy, Cassirer claims, can overcome the dispute between art and reason concerning our access to these basis phenomena by incorporating features from both sides of the dispute. Socratic ignorance and Socratic questioning are the model for such incorporation and access to the basis phenomena.
Cassirer claims that the method that respects our limitedaccess to the basis phenomena yet discloses features of the basis phenomena is the “reconstructive method” (rekonstruktive Methode). This methodis adopted from psychology, that is, from the psychological perspective in the broadest sense” (142; 138), rather than from the natural sciences. The correct methods and discoveries in psychology are useful for philosophy because the basis phenomena are primary, ‘“psychic’ phenomena” (144; 140).
Psychology in this broadsense differs from the natural sciences because of its distinctively autonomous viewpoint. Such autonomy from the other sciences is necessary if philosophy is to use psychological methods and results. Cassirer says, If psychology is supposed to contribute anything to the resolution of the basis phenomena,’ then it can obviously meet this task only if it subjects itself to a certain basic methodical requirement. It must adhere to its autonomy, that is, it must grasp each of these phenomena through its own specific ‘viewpoint’ and not let this viewpoint be prescribed from outside” (143; 138).
Psychology cannot explain the basis phenomena, although in the history of psychology such attempts have been made. Cassirer rejects naturalistic psychological methods because they do not preserve the mysterious and immaterial human features of the basis phenomena. In contrast, Cassirer says the reconstructive psychological method is not explanation, but elucidation”; it proceeds not in the sense of explaining’ the primary phenomena, the basis phenomena—for that wouldbe an impossible undertaking”; rather it attempts to make them visible’” (142; !3«).
Cassirer connects this reconstructive method to descriptive psychology. Dilthey, Husserl, and Natorp each contributed to the notion of descriptive psychology: “The ideal of a descriptive psychology as Dilthey conceived of it, as Husserl present edit, and as Natorp attempted systematically to found it—together brought a new breakthrough’ to the basis phenomena” (143; 138). These thinkers contributed to an essentially philosophical psychology that couldreveal the primary phenomena of human reality.
Physical sciences deliberately disregard psychic phenomena. Such phenomena disappear in these sciences. They must be brought back into view by other means; the turn in viewpoint that would be necessary in order to make them visible again lies completely outside the methodological possibilities and the methodological competence of objective science” (144; 140). Descriptive psychology makes this required turn.
Lipps’s study of human experience illustrates this turn. Lipps takes up the older division of feeling, willing, and thinking and says the division cannot be found through sensualistic or materialistic psychological methods. Cassirer says, “Feeling, willing, thinking is a division taken without special concern, and without any previous scientific preparation, from everyday, pre-scientific language and yet—perhaps because of this — it opens up again a new, deeper dimension for psychology that it had over looked and underestimated all too greatly in its ‘sensualis-tic’ form” (148; 143). Psychology should not dismiss ordinary or everyday experience; culture is grounded in such experience. A deeper understanding of the human being is achieved by turning toward, instead of away from, psychic phenomena.
Cassirer specifically adopts Natorp’s notion of the reconstructive method of psychological analysis. Natorp’s reconstructive method is defined by its indirect, subjective, and factual approach. Through an indirect, subjective approach, both the objective structure and original nature of the first basis phenomenon becomes visible. Cassirer states, “It [life] can be made visible only indirectly—by asking about the ‘objective’ structure’s ‘subjective’ sources and’origins.’ That is the unique ‘reconstructive’ methodof Natorp’s psychology” (150; 145). The philosophical interest in origins arises in this psychology.
The reconstructive method also maintains a factual approach. Natorp conceives of an analysis of subjective knowledge that begins with factuality or objective knowledge. Knowledge of the subjective, knowledge of life, is not given but must be acquired: “Only by means of a reconstructive analysis from ‘factual knowledge,’ objective knowledge, can we attain knowledge of the forces that generate this knowledge and have brought it forth” (150; 146).
Cassirer regards Bühler’s analysis of language as corresponding to Natorp’s methodological approach to subjectivity. Büh-ler’s analysis of language shows how the basis phenomena become visible through the use of reconstructive psychology. Bühler begins with factuality. Cassirer says, “His contribution is truly reconstructive’ in Natorp’s sense. He begins with what language in fact is, that is, the unity and totality of its meaning, how it brings about meaning, and he distinguishes among the different ‘aspects’ of this meaning” (152; 147). Cassirer considers the three basis phenomena as factual features of experience: “We hereby begin by simply taking this three-dimensionality as a fact” (138; 133).
The methods of Bühler and Cassirer are alike in classifying phenomena according to modes. According to Bühler, each aspect of language can be categorized through its specific mode of psychic representation. Cassirer says, “For each of the aspects he identifies—announcing, evocation, representation—he seeks a particular mode of mental representation” (152; 147-48). Cassirer’s analysis of the basis phenomena identifies the modal characteristics of his subject matter: “Each of the three basis phenomena that we have distinguished from one another can itself be seen and interpreted in terms of a different mode of knowledge” (167; 166-67).
The reconstructive method proceeds indirectly, and this feature of it appears in both Bühler’s and Cassirer’s studies. An originary activity or principle can be known through its manifestations but cannot be known directly. For Bühler, the structure of language indirectly reveals the categorization of what must be inherent in mental (psychical) phenomena. Cassirer says, “This classification is indirectly inferred from particular features of the structure of language.’ This structure must be somehow inherent’ in the basic mental phenomena, for without this inherent ‘predisposition,’ it could not ‘develop’” (152; 148).
For Cassirer, the history of metaphysics indirectly reveals the relation between the basis phenomena: The types of metaphysics as they have actually come forth in history result in an indirect representation of this structural relationship — a kind of map of the entire territory of knowledge of reality” (155; 152). In Cassirer’s hands, the reconstructive method moves from a methodof psychology to a method of metaphysics and his study of the basis phenomena.
Cassirer’s metaphysics and the theory of knowledge that accompanies it are holistic. His goal is to encompass and grasp their subject matter as completely as possible. Cassirer criticizes those metaphysics and theories of knowledge which are abstract and merely partial, although he finds that studying such philosophies is a key to understanding the basis phenomena from which they stem.
Cassirer claims that metaphysics, when properly conceived, is concerned with the totality of reality, or in the question of the functions that disclose and make reality’ accessible to us at all, in the question of their systematic totality and their systematic organization” (153; 150). Interpreting, not turning away from, phenomena is its purpose. He says, It seeks… to give areading, interpretation, understanding of phenomena” and to provide a total vision and a total interpretation of reality” (155; 151). Metaphysics is defined essentially by this concern with the whole of reality.
Metaphysics is not independent of experience. Some thinkers view metaphysics as an attempt by thought to break away from human experience. Cassirer says, Metaphysics is virtually defined for Kant by its going beyond everything that can be determined through possible experience,’ that it in principle transcends’ experience” (153-54; 150). For Cassirer, metaphysics is possible precisely because it does not attempt to transcend experience: In and for itself metaphysics is in no way a turning away from experience, from the phenomenon per se” (154-55; 151).
A break from experience is not in fact ever realized. Cassirer states, “If we consider the historical forms of metaphysics, we see that in them this claim to absolute freedom from experience is nowhere realized” (154; 150). Such a break is simply not possible. Cassirer asks, “How coulda generally valid, completely universal statement about reality be attained if we break off every bridge to experience?” (154; 150). A completely universal statement must incorporate experience as part of its claim to universality.
In his essay “Naturalistic and Humanistic Philosophies of Culture,” Cassirer remarks that his critical philosophy cannot escape the experiential or empirical limitations of knowledge. He says, “Nor can philosophy transcendthese limits to our empirical knowledge. As critical philosophy, it endeavors to understand the universal and basic cultural orientations; it seeks, above all, to penetrate to an understanding of the universal principles according to which man ‘gives structure’ to his experience.”5
Cassirer calls philosophies “real” metaphysics that do not claim to disconnect themselves from experience. He says, “We do not find such a separation therefore in any real metaphysics— in Parmenides, in Heraclitus, in Aristotle, in Leibniz, in Spinoza, in Hegel” (154; 150). In the history of metaphysics, these thinkers are noteworthy for their attitudes toward the fact that the real is inherent in human experience.
5. “Naturalistic and Humanistic Philosophies of Culture,” in The Logic of the Humanities, 36-37.
These real metaphysicians are nevertheless in error. Each isolates a part of reality and attempts to make it the whole of reality. Cassirer says, “’Metaphysics’ errs here not by turning away from experience per se but by screening out certain basic aspects of it” (155; 151); and also, “in each case a certain aspect of experience has been posited as absolute and then taken in isolation, where upon this absolute positing is declared to be primordial, being in itself” (154; 151). Not absolute, but relative, truth characterizes human reality; any absolute metaphysics is a flawed description of human reality.
Above all, in his own metaphysics, Cassirer wants to make the basis phenomena visible. He criticizes traditional metaphysics for attempting to dissect the primary phenomena. Cassirer states, Characteristic of the method of metaphysics is the circumstance that it is not satisfied with making ‘visible’ the relevant primary phenomenon, basis phenomenon, that it rests upon; rather, it strives to unravel it, it wants to unveil the veiled image of Sais, it wants to find’the clue’ to the riddle of life, of nature, and so on. It believes that it can attain this goal only by establishing that this phenomenon is all-encompassing, is ‘reality’ itself” (155; 152). Metaphysical thinking should not desire to overreach its inherent limits. Such overreaching invites absolute and false explanations of reality. The Goethean idea that what cannot be unraveledmust be acceptedas such is in-corporatedby Cassirer into his conception of metaphysics.
A significant portion of the text on basis phenomena concerns the history of metaphysics. Each metaphysical system in the history of metaphysics is grounded in and emphasizes one of the basis phenomena; a study of this history is one of our primary forms of access to these phenomena. Cassirer says, The analysis of metaphysics in its historical form can divulge something to us about the structure of knowledge of reality” and “an overview of the types of metaphysics leads us back again to those typical basis phenomena’ that we have sought to distinguish” (155; 152).
The theory of knowledge is the other holistic project of philosophy with which Cassirer is concerned in the text on basis phenomena. Different theories of knowledge are founded on the different basis phenomena. Cassirer wants to develop, in contrast to these theories, a theory of knowledge that encompasses all three basis phenomena. The partialityofeachtheoryis comprehended in his universal system of knowledge.
Cassirer says, “The different dimensions of the basis phenomenaare also validin the organization of the theory of knowledge, for with in each dimension the problem of knowledge acquires a different shape and ‘meaning,’ that is, another teleological structure” (166; 165). These theories present knowledge as primarily structuredby either the self, others, or culture; that is, each of them is associated with a particular, characteristic form of knowledge: the form of intuition,’ of action,’ of contemplation’” (167; 167). Knowledge is acquired and shaped differently in each case.
Theories of knowledge make the same mistake as their metaphysical counterparts. Each theory of knowledge isolates one aspect of knowledge and reduces all others to it. Cassirer states, “These different forms of exegesis take in each case a specific basis phenomenon to be the central, indeed the only one. They seek analytically to constitute and so to reduce everything that we call ‘knowledge’ to it” (166; 165). The reduction of all knowledge to one element is the typical error of partial, narrow theories.
A holistic theory seeks to incorporate all ways of human knowing. Each of the partial theories is understood as a relative viewpoint within the whole, and no one way of knowing is considered absolute. Cassirer says, The task of a truly universal theory of knowledge would be to grasp the relative character of all these different interpretations, that is, to comprehend how each of them is relatedto a particular fundamental kindof basis phenomenon and how they provide its interpretation’ or reading.’ It would then synthetically unite them in such a way that justice is done to every aspect of our knowledge of reality” (166; 165-66). Cassirer’s holistic grasp of the relative nature of particular theories allows it not to dismiss any aspect of human knowing.
Cassirer is not interestedin the conventional schemes that use the concept of schools of thought to classify different theories of knowledge. Such classifications remain abstract, whereas the concept of basis phenomena leads to a deeper understanding of these theories. He states, “Here our concern is not with the traditional opposites of realism and idealism, of empiricism and rationalism, but with a distinction that lies much deeper, comparedto which these oppositions are merely superficial categories” (167; 166). The categories of realism andidealism, and so forth, are oppositions within the same debate. Cassirer prefers to cut these Gordian knots by moving beyond such absolute positions.
In his theory of knowledge Cassirer distinguishes between bases and modes of knowledge. The bases are the three basis phenomena, whereas the modes are the various conceptual manifestations of the bases: “the basis of knowledge (that is, the primary phenomenon that is its basis) as the ‘source’ from which all certainty springs and flows, and the mode of knowledge in which this phenomenon must be ‘comprehended’ and ‘interpreted’” (167; 167). All theories of knowledge can be categorized and understood in light of this distinction. Cassirer says, “The ‘modal’ change belongs to a different dimension from the change in type, and the two must be carefully kept apart in our analytic observations” (177; 180).
The history of the theory of knowledge reveals that each theory grounds knowledge in or refers knowledge to one of the basis phenomena: “The various ‘theories of knowledge’ that have emerged in the history of philosophy explicate these different ‘meanings or opinions’ concerning the concept of ‘knowledge’” (166; 165). Cassirer’s goal of a “systematic overview [systematischer Überblick] of the possible forms of the theory of knowledge” (167; 167) or a “truly universal theory of knowledge” (166; 165) requires that all types of theories of knowledge occurring in the history of philosophy must be comprehended. A viable theory of knowledge must encompass all the basis phenomena; that is, it does not therefore deny these aspects and cannot do without them, if it is to fulfill its task to make visible and accessible the whole of knowledge” (171; 172).
Metaphysics and theory of knowledge are integrally related for Cassirer. Metaphysics (what reality is) and theory of knowledge (how this reality is known) are parts of a total way of thinking. In his philosophy Cassirer attempts to grasp the complete description of reality” (126;122); whatever is partial or one-sided is brought together with all else that is partial and one-sided, and the totality in which they actually exist is reconstructedin philosophical thought.
In metaphysics the first basis phenomenon is expressedby the metaphysics of life. In the theory of knowledge the first basis phenomenon is expressedby the theory of intuition; the views of Bergson, Descartes, and Husserl are the modes of this theory. The so-called philosophies of life are grounded in the first basis phenomenon, itself described as life. The metaphysics of life maintains that it has access to the nature of life and is able to unveil it. Cassirer says, “It is ‘a mystery to us and others,’ but metaphysics presumes to be able to take down the gates.’ It wants to open the holy shrine of life, the mysterium tremendum of life. This is how the different varieties of the philosophy of life arise” (156; 153).
In the text on basis phenomena Cassirer’s remarks concerning the metaphysics of life are quite brief. He mentions the Renaissance thinkers Tommaso Campanella and Giordano Bruno, the mystics, and Schelling and Bergson as metaphysical thinkers of the first basis phenomenon. For each of these thinkers life is the sole primary principle of reality. Cassirer states that for Schelling, There is an intellectual intuition of life that goes beyondall the divisions of the concept, which makes visible [the] unity and fundamentality of the process of life. The spirit emerges from it, not as life’s opposite, but as its culmination and completion” (157; 154). Life is here the only fundamental metaphysical process. The metaphysics of life, formulatedby Schelling, Bergson, andothers, selects, implies, or assumes the first basis phenomenon as the sole groundof reality.
The first basis phenomenon also grounds a type of theory of knowledge. All theories of this type follow the same method of ascertaining the crux of knowledge, which for them is the I or the monad. All monadic theories of knowledge, Cassirer claims, share a methodof intuition. Human knowledge is saidto stem from intuitive ability. According to monadic theorists, the notion of intuition best explains the essence of selfhood: “They believed that with this they had named a source of knowledge which is specifically correlatedto the I, that reveals the new, unique ‘figure’ (’visage’) of the I in a unique, unparalleled way of seeing” (169; 169). All certain knowledge of the self, others, and the worldis obtained through intuition, in their view.
In this method, ideas commonly considered true are set aside or bracketedas suspect. This bracketing allows the irreducible source and center of all knowledge to emerge. Cassirer says, The technic’ of the theory of knowledge consists in taking a specific body of knowledge, the content of cognitions, in order then to put it hypothetically in suspension and to see what follows from this suspension. This is the only way it can move ahead to its ‘center’” (172; 173). Encompassedin the suspension are all previous theories of knowledge; an unbiasedandoriginal viewpoint shouldthus result.
This suspension is only hypothetical, however; all previous ideas are disregarded but not considered to be nonexistent. Cassirer claims that the contents of this hypothetical bracketing are the phenomena of the You and the It. He says, “It is essential here for the monadic’ theories of knowledge that they disregard’the ‘You’[Du]and the’It’[¿ss], not in the sense that they are declared to be ontologically unreal or invalid, but in the sense that they direct and orient them toward the pure I [ich]” (173; 174). In this view the You and the It are deduced from the I; thus they are secondary structures of knowledge.
Monadic theories of knowledge claim that the monad is the unconditional and irreducible middle point of all knowledge. The intuition of the self is the most fundamental feature of the self: “This ‘visage’ is primordial, original” (169; 169); he describes it as a compression of all world’ and the whole breadth of existence into a single point: the extreme concentration of the whole ‘periphery’ into the single central datum of the self” (177; i79).
Within the monadic theory of knowledge appear different modes. The figure of the I has different characteristics in these modes: “This original can be taken in different ways, differently interpreted in different ‘modes’ of knowledge whereby each modus is indicative of a different level or ‘elevation’ of knowledge” (169; 169). The method by which these modes secure the I, despite their divergent characterizations of the I, is the same. In their bracketing of the other two basis phenomena, the modes correspond. Cassirer states, They are, from the standpoint of their content and their inferences, completely different, even divergent and irreconcilable…. But in the manner in which they work out, attain, and secure their center (’pure intuition’ of the I), they follow a very specific course in which they coincide” (172; 173).
Cassirer identifies three modes of this type, which are represented by the approaches of Bergson, Descartes, and Husserl. Cassirer says, “The ‘mode of knowledge’ that interprets and renders this originally given original intuition is different. We distinguish here among three levels, which can be designated with the names Bergson, Descartes, Husserl” (169; 169). In these three modes, the I is experienced either as duration, as thought, or as intention.
Bergson’s method of isolating the center of knowledge consists in putting aside the biological aspects of life so that the purely creative aspects become visible. Biological facts do not reveal life; thus, those facts are bracketed: The particular character, the ‘ flow’ of life, disappears while on the other hand the pure intuition of this stream of life lets us understand how it divides into different directions” (174; 176). Bergson conceives of the I as life and duration. Cassirer says, For Bergson, the intuition of the I melts into the universal intuition of life’ or of ‘ livedduration’ of durée vécu’ (169; 169).
Descartes’s and Bergson’s methods are analogous, though the contents of their presuppositions are radically divergent. Descartes’s method places certainties of thought in suspension so that the source of their certainty emerges: It is Descartes’ vio- lent tearing himself away from the type of mathematical certainty, from the ‘ objective,’ unquestionable truth of mathematics, by calling into question the unquestionable,’ in order to at- tain the actual original source of certainty, the cogito” (175; 177). In Descartes’s case, the bracketing is performedin isolation and results in an isolatedsource of certainty. Cassirer says, “He attains the phenomenon of the I in pure isolation The phenomenon of life shrinks to the phenomenon of the I and thereby to the phenomenon of thought, of ‘ cogitatio’” (169-70; 170). The source is the I, which is essentially thought; life is reduced to thought.
Husserl’s mode of intuition is eidetic, seeking the pure essences of the objects of knowledge. In this method of eidetic intuition, the user sets the world aside in order to focus on the ego’s intentions. Cassirer says, The entire reality of things is swept aside, ‘put in brackets,’ put out of view through the epoché. All that remains is the reality of the stream of consciousness, of the ‘pure I,’ to which all so-calledbeing, all truth is relatedand in which it is founded’” (171; 172). The second and third basis phenomena are bracketed out and then understood only through the first basis phenomenon. The I is intentionality towardall of reality: “All intentions, intention towardthe ‘You’ as well as toward It,’… lies enclosedin noesis, in the pure ego’s meaning-giving acts” (176; 179). Knowledge is traced back to its source in the self.
Cassirer’s description of the philosophy of life in the text on basis phenomena parallels his earlier description of it in his texts concerning spirit and life. Cassirer identifies the philosophy of life and its proponents in a way that coincides with the earlier texts, even though his description, interpretation, and classification of life are framed in terms of the monad, the I, and the Self. He continues to maintain the fundamental idea that some philosophies are based on a notion of life.
Some metaphysics and theories of knowledge take the second basis phenomenon, the will, as their center. The will is viewed either as an irrational or as a rational force. In such metaphysics the will is posited as the ground of reality. In the theory of knowledge accompanying metaphysics of this type, action is considered the source of knowledge; Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Fichte exemplify the modes of this pragmatic theory.
The passages in the text on basis phenomena concerning the metaphysics of the will are brief. Cassirer makes the main point that in this metaphysics the first and third basis phenomena are reduced to the second basis phenomenon as their center and ground. Cassirer says, “The totality of being is concentrated in a highly unusual way into a single point, ‘devoured’ by the phenomenon of the will, so that even the I-You problem is visible only in terms of pure ethics” (158; 155): all interaction is fundamentally an action of the will. The will is defined in two different ways, which generate the two modes of this type of metaphysics. The will is conceived of in one as an irrational, irresistible urge, and in the other as a rational, intellectual basis of duty. Cassirer mentions Schopenhauer as a representative of the former conception; for Schopenhauer, “the will is grasped as a ‘blind drive’” (157; 154).
Fichte represents the other mode of the metaphysics of the will. For Fichte, the will is independent of mere drives and is their conscious ruler; the will is “something on its own, independent, autonomous, opposed to the mere drives which it governs and shapes” (158; 154). The reality of the You is essentially ethical. The interaction between wills is real, whereas the notion of the monad is unreal or illusory. Cassirer states, “Consciousness of duty, ‘conscience,’ breaks through the merely ‘monadic’ form of self-consciousness. It leads to the ‘reality of the You’ [das Du] as the subject of ethics with equal rights and equal autonomy— individuality [is] only illusion” (158; 155). Both modes of the metaphysics of the will agree that all phenomena can be reduced to the phenomenon of the will.
The pragmatic theory of knowledge is associated with the second basis phenomenon. All human cognition has its source in will edaction. Truth must be understood through action: “All truth, in order to be really ‘understood’ and epistemologically justified must be traced to this single source (coordinate middle point)” (178; 181). Truth does not exist in itself but rather arises in action, and it is the goal of this theory of knowledge to locate the forces behind truths and knowledge. Cassirer says, The [action] theory of knowledge is nothing but this technique of debunking, not the uncovering of a truth that exists in itself,’ but the discovery of an original force that is hidden behind this supposed truth” (180; 184).
According to this view the will is primordial and the primordiality of other phenomena is rejected. Monadic self-consciousness is deniedso that will edaction can be positedas the explanation of knowledge. The I-aspect of knowledge is denied: In order to bring the pragmatic aspect fully to bear, the other— the I-aspect… is now blacked out, put out of commission” (178; 181). The It-aspect, orthe objective sphere of knowledge, is likewise denied. Cassirer says, This same blacking out, as applied here to the I-sphere, also is brought to bear on the sphere of objective values, objective being, and objective truth” (179; 182). Only the You-aspect of knowledge is legitimated on this view.
Cassirer identifies two modes of this theory of knowledge. In the history of philosophy the will is regarded as a lower-level unconscious drive or as a higher-level intellectual force. The two modes of this theory are divided according to this distinction. Cassirer says, If we remain within the general typic of the phenomena of will,’ we meet with various kinds of theories of knowledge, depending upon whether the interpretations focus on the elementary’ or higher’ forms of the will Bothforms are represented in the history of the theory of knowledge” (177; 180).
The one mode characterizes the will as a blind drive that the intellect serves. Cassirer includes modern pragmatism, fictional-ism, and the views of William James, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger in this mode. Any view of knowledge that bases knowledge on a means-ends scheme or on a quest for power belongs to this mode. Some political theories can also be explained in this way: “This reduction of truth to effectiveness is characteristic therefore of all theories that make the Will to Power’ their highest principle, of fascist theories as well as of the Marxist theory of the superstructure” (180; 183). The aim of will and action, and subsequently of knowledge, is effectiveness or influence on the surroundings.
Nietzsche is a chief proponent of this will-based theory of knowledge. Nietzsche, Cassirer claims, is especially concerned with rejecting the third basis phenomenon of objective cultural values. Cassirer says, “All so-called values serve a foreign purpose (stemming from the will to power). That is the conclusion already drawn by Nietzsche, who is the most persistent and consistent representative of this pragmatic leveling of the value of truth” (179; 182). Values are constructed for a foreign andinstrumental goal rather than an inherent purpose that stems from the will.
Heidegger maintains a similar theory of knowledge. For Heidegger, Cassirer claims, knowledge is based on unconscious will and action, on unconscious being-in-the-world and being-thrown. Vital action, being driven to the outside, being driven forward” (181; 184), is the human being’s first understanding of reality. Cassirer holds that Heidegger’s notion of care (Sorge)is also based on will and action.
In contrast to the view that defines the will as blind force, the other mode of theory of knowledge defines the will as intellectual force. The theories in this mode also posit the originary nature of the will; they retain the primacy of the will before knowledge but do not begin with the will as a dull, dark, unconscious drive,’ but see in it rational, reasoned energy conscious of itself” (181; 184). The self and the worldare known through action, “in an originary, spontaneous act” (182; 185).
Fichte is the best representative of this kind of theory of knowledge. In the turn from the first to the second basis phenomenon as the focal point in the theory of knowledge, Fichte’s concept of an intellectual will replaces concepts of monadic intuition in other philosophies. Cassirer says, “This turn is represented historically in the purest form by Fichte” (181; 185).
Fichte claims in his theory of knowledge that understanding arises only through an ethical categorical imperative. The self, the other, and the world of stable objects are known through intuition of the “I, because it is I only insofar as it is practical and it is practical only insofar as it submits to a general, completely universal commandment of reason; of the You, because the ‘recognition’ of the You comes about only through the ‘ought’; of the World, because this is nothing other than ‘duty’s material made sensible’” (182; 186). Human reality is fundamentally ethical; knowledge of reality and all its phenomena must therefore spring from knowledge of their source in the ethical.
Cassirer argues that Fichte’s views are centered not in the first basis phenomenon, as might appear, but in the second basis phenomenon. Fichte’s notion of transcendental apperception is not logical, but ethical. The I is produced by an act; the monadis not given to knowledge as a fact but must be made. Cassirer states, “As soon as we even speak the word’I,’ we were already in the midst of the sphere of action” (181; 185). The notion of the self comes into being through an intellectual act of the will. For all philosophies focused only on will, ethics, practice, and action, the second basis phenomenon is the principle that underlies their conceptions of reality andknowledge.
The third basis phenomenon of the work (das Werk)grounds a third type of philosophy. Cassirer claims that the philosophies of Hegel, Dilthey, and Kant are examples of this type of metaphysics. He claims that Socrates, Plato, and Kant are the main representatives of thinkers who derive their conceptions of knowledge from the contemplation of works. Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms, although it derives its position from all three of the basis phenomena, has a particular relation to the phenomenon of the work.
As a primary experience of the human being, the work cannot be reduced to either the first or the second basis phenomenon. Cassirer says, The work-sphere places metaphysics before new tasks. These cannot be dealt with (i) by approaching them through purely monadic being (2)Norcanthemeta physics of will fully grasp them” (159; 156). Culture, the prime example of the work, is an irreducible phenomenon of human reality.
The Romantics and Hegel, in their metaphysical systems, see that the objective nature of works cannot be explained through either a monadic metaphysics or a metaphysics of will. Culture is not the sum of individual actions; according to the Romantics and Hegel, the works that constitute culture must have a different and firmer footing” (160; 157) than either the individual or the will. This version of metaphysics is flawed in that the phenomenon to be explained is referredto some unknown concept. Cassirer says, The notions of the spirit of a people or the world spirit, and so on, commit the same fundamental mistake of metaphysical substantialization and hypostatization” (161; 158).
This flaw prompts another mode or interpretation of the work in the history of philosophy. A new approach to works is needed “after the downfall of Hegel’s metaphysics”; Dilthey uncovers this approach, this “decisive step” (161; 159). Cassirer regards the step as having been achievedin Dilthey’s conception of history and historical analysis. Dilthey holds that the work is not reducible to or understandable through the other two basis phenomena. Works have unique characteristics and arise in a specific way. The features of human reality are revealedonly through works: Dilthey’s basic problem is that of creative activity, that is, the activity that gives birth to the work,’ to what is deposited, manifestedin works and is revealedin them—and only in them” (162; 160). The manifestation of creative works cannot be graspedby a metaphysics of the monador a metaphysics of the will; it requires a view of the work as a primary phenomenon of reality.
According to Dilthey, works have particular structures which are actually realizedhere and now at a particular historical point in being and which must be understoodin this particular realization” (165; 163). For Dilthey, each kindof work has its own definition or structure, which occurs through the relation between creative personality behindthe work and the production characteristic of it. Cassirer says, The work of art, for example, has a structure of its own that can be objectively distinguished, for example, from the structure of a work of philosophy or of science” (162-63; 161). Only through a structural analysis, rather than a subjective analysis, of a work can that work be understood. In a poetic work, the inner process of creation, which is the interaction of the artist’s personalityand the goal of the work, determines the particular reality and structure of the work.
Dilthey represents one mode in the metaphysics of the work and Kant represents another. In Cassirer’s view of metaphysics as the union of human reality, experience, andknowledge, cou-pledwith the recognition of a world of empirically existing objects, both Dilthey and Kant are classifiedas metaphysicians, despite their objections to metaphysics.
Kant’s critical philosophy is an examination of the works of culture. Cassirer says, A concluding, fundamental way to try to understand the ‘works’ of culture—their peculiar kindof objectivity—is the methodthat Kant introducedinto philosophy” (164; 162). Kant’s focus on objectivity is a focus on works, or the products of culture or mind.
Although both Dilthey and Kant focus on the structure of works, Kant holds that works are structured by their universal, not particular, features. Cassirer says that for Kant, works must be understood as universal forms — the form of natural science, the form of art” (165; 163). The difference between Dilthey and Kant lies in their different emphases on the particular and the universal. Works, according to Kant, are not substances but the relation between how and what we know. Kant’s approach to works is always through this relation. Cassirer says, of Kant’s approach, “It does not begin with the analysis of things but rather asks about the specific mode of knowledge in which things alone are ‘given’ to us” (164; 162).
Substances, things, and traditional ontological concepts are not the form in which works are given, and therefore not the way in which human reality is in fact disclosed. Cassirer states, Kant does not investigate directly the being of things in the sense of the older ontology. He investigates the factum of specific ‘works’ (the ‘work’ of ‘mathematical natural science,’ and so on), and he asks how this work was possible,’ that is, on what logical presuppositions and principles it is based” (165; 163). For Kant, the universal forms of knowledge are the universal forms of human or cultural reality, and these universals are revealed through works. Despite their modal differences, Hegel, Dilthey, and Kant all belong to the same type of metaphysics; all locate human reality in the phenomenon of the work.
Theory of knowledge as based on the contemplation of works avoids the problems of reductionism associated with intuition or action as the source of knowledge. This type of theory focuses not merely on monadic theory or on ethical practice but on the dialectic between theory and practice. Dialectical knowledge is irreducible to either of the other types of knowledge. This theory of knowledge is a turn to contemplation,’ to pure objectivity’ as a turn toward the Idea in the broadest sense” (189; 195).
The Greek natural philosophers discovered the sphere of contemplation. They were able to view nature as objective, formal, andrule-following. Cassirer says, “This first occurs in Greek culture and originally only in it. This discovery of nature in objective ‘perception’ is then confirmed, furthered, and supplemented, in a sense transcended,’ in the discoveryofthe realm of Ideas, as the realm of ‘pure forms’” (190; 195). The objectivity requiredfor contemplation was discoveredby the pre-Socratics, but its fruition and realization began with Socrates.
Cassirer regards Socrates as the most characteristically contemplative philosopher in the history of philosophy. In describing the contemplative theory of knowledge, he refers to Socrates as its beginning andessence: In the history of philosophy, it is Socrates who discovers this sphere, who puts it forth and establishes it as a central object for philosophical investigation and ‘marvel”’ (184; 188).
Socratic contemplation has the productions of culture as its object. The forms of culture are manifestedin its works. Cassirer says, The discovery of this imperative of the work—its autochthonic and autonomous sense, its binding character’— that is Socrates’ real deed. With this he accomplishes the turn to the Idea’; this contains the synthesis of theory and praxis” (186; 191). Ideas or forms of thought are revealed: “In this contemplation the realm of form—of eidos andof idea—is discovered” (185; 190).
The classification of philosophies as either theoretical or practical cannot be usedin a consideration of Socrates’ philosophy. Theory is associatedwith conceptual, abstract, logical knowledge or rationality, and practice is associatedwith technical, willful action; these categories continually unite and separate for Socrates. Cassirer says, “Every attempt at such a classification immediately turns dialectically into its opposite” (184; 188). Socratic irony exists in part through this dialectical movement.
The attempt to classify Socrates as a theorist or a practitioner stems from the flawedpresupposition that philosophy must be one or the other. Cassirer says, This resulting dialectical cancellation is only a symptom of the fact that the real question of Socrates has not yet been raised” (184-85; 189). The real question of Socrates concerns his approach to theory andpractice: “The opposition between theory and practice — the opposition between knowledge andaction—has been deniedandovercome by Socrates, raising it in a synthesis to a new level” (185; 189). The object of Socratic investigation is the clue to this new level of synthesis.
The object of Socratic investigation is the work. Through Socrates’ dialectic, the third basis phenomenon becomes the access to truth. Socrates’ essential contribution or originality’” (185; 189) lies in the study of the work as the key to the human. Cassirer says, “The reflection of productive activity in the work is what creates the new sphere that is characteristically to be dis-tinguishedfrom that of mere ‘theory’ and that of mere ‘praxis’” (185; 190). The new sphere is the contemplative sphere, which examines the idea as present in the work of human culture.
The idea, seen in the work, transcends abstract thought and technical activity. The idea is nevertheless connected with thought and activity because both are requiredfor the production of a work. Cassirer says, It is rootedin both, but it goes beyondthem both; it has a peculiar transcendence’” (187; 191). Contemplation is a search for and consideration of the pure ideas manifestedin culture. Cassirer describes this Socratic contemplation as a purity of vision.
The Socratic quest for self-knowledge is directly related to the thirdbasis phenomenon. Self-knowledge is achievedby examining one’s works, not by looking inwardto oneself as an isolated individual. In the Socratic view, merely examining the first basis phenomenon does not yield self-knowledge: Socrates “does not call for ‘self-knowledge’ in the sense of some pure (monadic) looking inward(intro-spection, intuition of the I in the pure act of the cogito); instead, it means something completely new and unique for him” (185-86; 190). Cassirer says that Goethe’s maxims 657 and663 support Socrates’ view of self-knowledge; the maxims assert that such knowledge is gained not by introspection but by examination of one’s place in the broader realm of community or culture.
Knowledge of the self arises through knowledge of the works of the self. Works begin with instinct or tradition but can become self-conscious productions if one recognizes oneself as the active agent of their production. The call of the Delphic oracle requires the examination of the work. Cassirer says, “This call now means: know your work andknow ‘yourself’ in your work; know what you do, so you can do what you know” (186; 190). One must start from one’s place in history andculture, then act, then look at one’s work. Self-knowledge is not only an instance of the thirdbasis phenomenon; it is possible only through it.
Plato’s theory of knowledge stems from Socrates’ view. Cassirer says, “Plato invokes, develops, and systematically describes this realm of ‘forms’, the ideai as logoi, as the completion ofSoc-rates’ claim. And With this the new sphere of contemplation stands before us” (187; 192). This new sphere is opposed to the subjective, monadic sphere and to the technical, practical sphere. The first and secondbasis phenomena are continually changing andbecoming, whereas the thirdbasis phenomenon is essentially enduring, that is, “only the pure form endures” (188; 192). A work is enduring, fixed, and objective.
Contemplation for Plato, as for Socrates, is dialectical. In The Logic of the Cultural Sciences, Cassirer remarks that different perspectives of form are united through dialectical knowledge. He says, “This separation andreintegration, διάκρισις and σύγ-κρισις, is what Plato considered as the task of ‘dialectic,’ the authentic and philosophically basic science.”6 The fundamental way in which philosophy proceeds is through dialectical activity in contemplation of the forms of the work.
For Plato, knowledge of the third basis phenomenon is the proper groundfor politics. Politics cannot be groundedin the first and secondbasis phenomena, because they are the experience ofchange. The thirdbasis phenomenon is the experience of endurance, and politics shouldbe groundedin enduring truths about human reality. Plato rejects the view that politics is a praxis, a manifestation of the secondbasis phenomenon. Cassirer says, To put productive activity under the guidance and protection of pure form and knowledge of pure form—that is the goal that Plato also sets for himself as a politician” (188; iç2).
Contemplation of works supersedes intuition and action as the basis of political knowledge. Individuals and society itself must look to enduring form and idea to determine action. Form has permanence, owing to its objective quality: As with truth, just law’ can arise from this alone. For such just law’ can be nothing other than the inner ‘objective’ definiteness of form that Plato compares with the definiteness found in geometry” (188; 193). Knowledge of truth, including justice and politics, is groundedin the ideas and forms that are expressedandexperi-encedin works.
Kant’s conception of knowledge is based on form, in contrast to the Cartesian conception of knowledge as subjective or monadic. This notion of knowledge as based on form links Kant with Plato. Cassirer states, In modern philosophythis cognitive ideal of pure form’ was most clearly realized by Kant It too begins with the ‘work,’ and it uses this work in order to findout, through retrospective ‘reflection’ on the structure of the work, what forms are investedin it” (188; 193). Natural science is taken as a fact by Kant; its structure is examined, and then its forms or principles are revealed through his transcendental method. Natural science, morality, andart, the subjects of Kant’s three Critiques, are works. Transcendental analysis of their structure reveals the forms of human experience and knowledge.
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Kantian ethics, according to Cassirer, stems from the third basis phenomenon, just as Platonic knowledge of politics stems from that phenomenon. Ethics, for Kant, is not subjectively based: Kant set forth a purely formal’ ethics instead of a material’ ethics” (189; 194). Ethical action is objective andper-formedfor its own sake.
Cassirer says that one central objection to this type of ethical theory is that it posits an empty notion of duty; action without content is not action. A contradiction exists between the willed effects of an act and willing for its own sake. Kant’s aim, Cassirer claims, is not to hinder action but to ground it in knowledge of the pure form of ethics. Cassirer says, This contradiction is resolvedif we pay attention to the basic tendency of Kantian ethics, which consists in nothing other than to liberate ethics the same as logic from the despotism of merely material aims, that is, from the despotism of mere action, to purify it in the process of simple contemplation, knowledge of the ought” (189; 194). This knowledge of the ought is derived from the contemplation of ethical action as a kindof work.
In The Logic of the Cultural Sciences Cassirer describes Giam-battista Vico in terms that place him in the group of thinkers whose theory of knowledge is founded on the third basis phenomenon. Where thought must choose between piecemeal knowledge of nature or piecemeal knowledge of subjective concepts, Cassirer claims that Vico turns to the notion of works in order to satisfy both conditions. Cassirer says, The works of human culture are the only ones that unite in themselves both conditions in which perfect knowledge is based; they have not only a conceptually apprehended existence but also a thoroughly determined, individual and historic one. However, the internal structure of this existence is accessible and open to the human spirit only because it is its creator.”7 Works are determinate, historical, and enduring as well as culturally made.
Knowledge of works is the goal of philosophy for Vico because knowledge of works is identical to self-knowledge. This view of self-knowledge links Vico to Socrates, the originator of the contemplative philosophy of human reality: According to Vico, the real goal of our knowledge is not the knowledge of nature but human self-knowledge.”8 Self-knowledge is accessible through the works of culture. For Socrates, Plato, Kant, andVico, knowledge of human reality is basedon the phenomenon of the work.
Through his discussion of the various forms of metaphysics and of theory of knowledge, Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms emerges as a philosophy of the work. The thirdbasis phenomenon is the source of Cassirer’s conception of culture. The symbolic forms are the objective, enduring works of culture whose structure is disclosed through the Philosophy of Symbolic forms.
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Cassirer regards the metaphysics of the work of Hegel, Dil-they, and Kant as primary sources for his philosophy of symbolic forms. He states, “This is where the final way of inquiring into the ‘structure’ of works begins — the approach of the philosophy of symbolic forms. It goes back to Kant’s critical’ question, but it gives it a broader content” (165; 163). Human reality is the way in which human beings structure their worldin thought. Metaphysics, as the study of reality, must be centered in the structure of the symbolic forms.
An understanding of the inner form of symbolic activity is the key to a philosophy of culture. Cassirer says: “What the philosophy of symbolic forms claims is that this [turn towardthe general ‘inner form’] is what truly gives us access to the sphere of ‘works’” (165; 164). Access to inner form cannot be accomplished in the abstract; it depends on empirical and historical information. Cassirer says, “This ‘form’ can be foundonly through immersion in the empirical material, but this is accessible to us—andhere our analysis agrees with Dilthey—only in a historical form” (165; 164).
Cassirer agrees with Dilthey’s emphasis on the importance of history. The history of works is essential; however, works do not stem merely from what Dilthey calls creative personalities. Works also do not stem from a Hegelian overworld or from a Romantic underworld. A Diltheyan understanding of the personalities that createda work is useful, but it must be supported by an understanding of the universal and original form of meaning that is expressedin the work. Universal meaning, or the “specific yet truly universal and original (because originary) forms of giving meaning” (166; 165), is central to understanding the human sphere. Cassirer says, As the philosophy of symbolic forms regards things, history is only the starting point, not the end— terminus a quo not terminus ad quem — a phase, not the goal of philosophical knowledge” (165; 164).
From a starting point in empirical, historical knowledge, the general forms of human reality and human thought, it is possible to discover the symbolic forms. Cassirer states, Nowa turn towardthe general takes place that leads it… to an interpretation of ‘language’ in general—its ‘inner form’— of myth in general, of natural science and mathematics in general” (165; 164). “Inner form” refers to the genuine constitution of the symbolic forms, not an abstraction derived from their contents.
The goal of the metaphysics of symbolic forms, conceivedas a metaphysics of the work, is the holistic grasp of the works of culture. Cassirer says, “All the ‘works’ of culture are to be inves-tigatedin regardto their conditions and presentedin their general ‘form’” (165; 163-64). In his lecture “Language and Art II” Cassirer repeats this concept of philosophy; philosophy is called “the highest and most comprehensive mode of reflection.”9 In the text on basis phenomena, the philosophy of symbolic forms is the highest and most comprehensive mode of the metaphysics of the work. Culture as the expression of the thirdbasis phenomenon is the totality of human works, which provides the beginning and ending points of philosophical reflection on the nature of reality.
The philosophy of symbolic forms is a holistic theory of knowledge. All forms of knowledge are to be comprehended. In his criticism of physicalism as an explanation of human expression, Cassirer states that philosophy is concernedwith all the ways in which human beings know their world: “Here we [can raise] the objection that philosophy is concernednot just with science alone, but with all forms of ‘world understanding’” (123; 119). Myth andreligion, language, art, history, and science must be graspedas individual forms and as the interrelatedelements within the unity of human knowledge.
9. “Language and Art II,” in Symbol, Myth, and Culture, 194.
Cassirer makes one especially strong statement about the philosophy of symbolic forms as a theory of knowledge. After describing Kant’s theory of knowledge, Cassirer says, “The ‘philosophy of symbolic forms’ grows out of this critical, transcendental question and builds upon it. It is pure ‘contemplation,’ not of a single form, but of all—the cosmos of pure forms— and it seeks to trace this cosmos back to the conditions of its possibility”’ (189; 194-95). The philosophy of symbolic forms embraces and transforms into its own position Socrates’ conceptions of dialectic and self-knowledge, Plato’s conception of pure form, andKant’s conceptions of functional form andmethod.
The philosophy of basis phenomena is a search for a view of human reality and knowledge that does not reduce the human to one of its aspects. The philosophy of symbolic forms apprehends culture as a totality that arises from the interaction of all three of these basis phenomena. The work becomes the key to comprehending how this totality endures. For Cassirer, philosophy is part of culture; it is that activity of culture wherein culture apprehends itself as a whole, as a work and as a system of works. The most original and notable claim about philosophy that Cassirer makes in the text on basis phenomena is that the philosophy of symbolic forms is a Socratically grounded philosophy of the work.