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Summary: The 1st Volume of Ernst Cassirer's Opus
Review: Ernst Cassirer is one of the foremost Neo-Kantian philosophers of the 20th century. This semi-easy to read book is the 1st of 4 volumes of his Opus about the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. The 1st volume deals with language, the 2nd with Mythical Thought, the 3rd with the Phenomenology of Knowledge, & the 4th with the Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms. As most people understand western philosophical history, Plato was the 1st to make a systematic philosophical system which made the Ideal or "Form" of thought an Axiom of reality. This way of understanding reality created more problems than answers until Descartes came up with his Rational Axiom: "I think therefore I am", which many felt was an overstatement lacking Empirical experience. Immanuel Kant solved this problem with a Synthesis (Union) of the Rational & the Empirical. In other words, the human mind functions & understands reality in a certain rational way by uniting with common experience. Immanuel Kant came up with 12 different "Categories of Thought" which was based on Aristotle's Categories from an abstraction of language. Ernst Cassirier goes a step further in stating that the mind abstracts reality by use of symbols which are taught from certain historical cultural groups & as with the philosopher Michel Foucault, both reveal the disunity of modern science's methods & terminology. Unlike Michel Focault difficult book "The Order of Things, An Archaeology of the Human Sciences", Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is easier to read & focuses on the main issue of the human mind's use of symbols. This book requires a certain knowledge of philosophical history & terms, & is not for a philosophy beginner. For a start on Ernst Cassirier, try his smaller, easy to read, & to the point book "Language & Myth" for a taste of this mind opening philosophy.
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