cassirer, neo-kantismo y metafisica

Cassirer, Neo-Kantianism and MetaphysicsAuthor(s): John Michael KroisSource: Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 97e Année, No. 4, Cassirer (Octobre-Décembre1992), pp. 437-453Published by: Presses Universitaires de FranceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40903242 .

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Cassirer, Neo-Kantianism and Metaphysics

Cassirer hat sich - wie der späte Cohen und der späte Natorp - von der Mar- burger Beschränkung auf Erkenntnistheorie entfernt. In bisher unpublizierten Texten aus der Emigrationszeit befaßte Cassirer sich mit dem Problem der Metaphysik. Goethes Lehre von den Urphänomenen und die Gestalttheorie Kurt Goldsteins beeinflußten Cassirers späte Theorie der « Basisphänomene ». Diese neue Denkrichtung knüpfte an die Symboltheorie Cassirers an und wies auf ihren Ausgang hin.

Tout comme Cohen et Natorp dans leur œuvre tardive, Cassirer s'est situé au-delà de la théorie de la connaissance à laquelle l'École de Mar bourg entendait se limiter. Dans des textes écrits durant son exil et qui n'ont pas encore été publiés, Cassirer aborde la problématique de la métaphysique. La théorie gœthéenne des phénomènes originaires comme la théorie de la forme développée par Kurt Goldstein ont influencé la réflexion tardive de Cassirer sur les « phénomènes de base ». Cette nouvelle orientation de sa pensée s'articule sur la théorie du symbole, et indique comment la dépasser.

I.

What is Cassirer's relationship to the Marburg Neo-Kantian school? Cassirer himself was aware that this question needed clarification, particularly as it regarded his intellectual relationship to Hermann Cohen. Toni Cassirer reports that when Cassirer learned he was to write his intellectual autobiography for the « Library of Living Philosophers » volume on his thought, it was the one thing foremost in his mind; he said: « Nun werde ich mein Verhältnis zu Cohen endlich doch für die anderen klarmachen, und darauf freue ich mich. Meine Bindung an ihn

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und meine spätere Loslösung von ihm, beides ist wichtig »*. As Cas- sirer saw it, his relationship to Cohen was twofold: both a Bindung - a bond or tie - and a later Loslösung - a letting go or setting off on his own. This does not tell us much. Cassirer never wrote this autobio- graphical statement, and the question has never been fully answered. This problem, as I understand it, is not simply the psychological matter of the self-assertion of a younger generation. It does not affect Cassirer's personal friendship with Cohen or concern their relationships to Judaism, a topic on which Steven Schwarzschild has done extensive research2; it is strictly a question of the development of their philosophical ideas.

The facts of Cassirer's study at Marburg with Cohen and Natorp are well-known, and his published essays on Cohen and Natorp give his assess- ments of their achievements3. His article on « Neo-Kantianism » for the fourteenth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and the opening discussion of Neo-Kantianism in the fourth volume of the Erkenntnispro- blem evaluate the significance of this movement for the history of philosophy4. But none of this answers the philosophical question of the relationship of the Marburg school to the philosophy of symbolic forms5. There are varying degrees of independence of thought. Certainly Cassirer's « Loslösung » from Cohen does not entail a rejection of the results of Cohen's philosophy. The clearest example of this is found in

1. T. Cassirer, Mein Leben mit Ernst Cassirer (Hildesheim, Gerstenberg Verlag, 1981), 94. Literally: « Now I will finally make clear for the others my relationship to Cohen, and I look forward to doing that. My tie to him and my later loosening from him-both are important ».

2. In an as yet unpublished manuscript on « Judaism in the Life and Work of Ernst Cassirer ». My interest in Ernst Cassirer's relationship to the Marburg school was greatly enriched through conversations and correspondence with Steven Schwarzschild. The following was originally conceived in part as an answer to his comments. Even when we did not agree, he reacted out of friendship.

3. See esp. Hermann Cohen und die Erneuerung der Kantschen Philosophie, « Kant- Studien » 17 (1912), 252-273; Hermann Cohen, 1842-1918 « Social Research » 10 (1943), 219-232; and Paul Natorp « Kant-Studien » 30 (1925), 273-298. For a descriptive account of all of Cassirer's writings on this topic, see W. Egger and S. Meyer, Ernst Cassirer. An Annotated Bibliography (New York, Garland, 1988). Further secondary literature is also listed in R. Klibansky, Bibliografia di Ernst Cassirer in E. Cassirer, Filosofia delle forme simboliche: 3, Fenomenologia della comoscenza, tomo II (Firenze, La nuova édi- trice, 1982), 335-378.

4. See esp. The Problem of Knowledge. Philosophy, Science, and History since Hegel. trans, by William H. Woglon, M.D. and Charles W. Hendel (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1950) esp. 3-11, cf. Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit. Vierter Band, Von Hegels Tod bis zur Gegenwart (1832-1932) (rpt.: Darms- tadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1973), 11-19.

5. I spell « philosophy of symbolic forms » lower case to refer to the philosophy îtselî ; italics refer to the books of that title. Cassirer developed the idea of the philosophy of symbolic forms in many writings besides The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms itself.

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their views of ethics ; there is no fundamental disagreement between Cas- sirer and Cohen regarding practical philosophy6. After travelling a dis- tance together Cassirer took leave of Cohen in order to go off in a different direction. What direction did he take?

Cassirer said repeatedly that the one enduring achievement of Cohen's renewal of Kantianism was the idea of the « transcendental method »7. The theoretical point at which Cassirer engages in a « Loslösung » from Cohen and Neo-Kantianism is this: Cassirer attempted to think beyond the transcendental method.

The first step in the « Loslösung » from Neo-Kantiasnism occurred when, in the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Cassirer applied the transcendental method in a new way. Instead of asking about how « knowledge » was possible, Cassirer asked about the conditions of the possibility of our ways of « understanding » the world and of understanding one another in language, a program he stated already on the first page of the Vorwort to volume one8. He clarified this new application of the transcendental method in his debate with Heidegger in Davos, where Cassirer said: « He [Cohen] saw the essential nature of the transcendental method therein that this method always began with a factum, but then he narrowed down this general definition - begin with a factum in order to ask about the possibility of this factum - so that again and again the thing most worth asking about was mathematical science. Kant did not limit things in this way. I ask about the possibility of the factum of language. How is it, how is it conceivable, that we are able to understand one another from Dasein to Dasein in this medium? »9 With this Cassirer moved beyond Erkenntnistheorie.

6. An account of this is found in the Cassirer chapter in W. Kluback, The Idea of Humanity. Hermann Cohen's Legacy to Philosophy and Theology. Studies in Judaism (Lanham, New York, London, University Press of America, 1987), 91-114.

7. I have examined this topic in my study Cassirer. Symbolic Forms and History (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987), esp. 6-10, 13-15, 38-44, citing a variety of Cassirer's writings on the subject ; further discussion is also found in my essay Problematik, Eigenart und Aktualität in Hans-Jürg Braun, Helmut Holzhey, and Ernst Wolfgang Orth (eds.), Über Ernst Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (Frankfurt am Main, Suhr- kamp, 1988), 33-44.

8. See E. Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, 3 vols 1923-1929 (rpt : Darms- tadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964); trans., The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, 3 vols (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1953-1957). Hereinafter cited as PSF (English ed.) or PsF (German ed.) with the pages of the above editions. On the first page of the Vorwort to the first volume Cassirer says that his subject matter will be « die verschiedenen Grundformen des " Verstehens" der Welt » (PsF) 1 : v), « the various forms of man's " understanding" of the world » (PSF 1 : 69).

9. See the protocol of Cassirer's remarks in Davoser Disputation zwischen Ernst Cassirer und Martin Heidegger. Published as a supplement to M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem

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With his Philosophie der symbolischen Formen Cassirer came to conceive philosophy in terms of what has come to be known as the linguistic or semiotic turn. On one hand, this led him to criticizie traditional philosophy; a good example of this is his evaluation of Nicolai Hartmann's ontology, which, Cassirer argues, depends upon an unreflective reifica- tion of linguistic distinctions10. It also led him to revise his assessment of his own early work; looking back in 1928 at Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff of 1910, he observed that « The logical problem of the concept now seems to me to be coupled much more closely with the general theory of meaning than it did in my earlier work »n. In the same essay that contains his criticisms of Hartmann, Cassirer says: « that area of theoretical meaning that we designate by the names "knowledge" and "truth" represents only one, however significant und fundamental, layer of meaning [Sinnschicht]. In order to understand it ... we must contrast this layer of meaning with other dimensions of meaning - we must, in other words, conceive the problem of knowledge and the problem of truth as particular cases of the general problem of meaning »12. In all this Cassirer has transformed the theory of knowledge into the theory of the understanding of meaning.

In time, however, Cassirer also sought to develop the basis of the philosophy of symbolic forms and he called this attempt « Metaphysik ». This development in his thought occurred after he left Germany in 1933, and the writings in which he develops his views on the subject are still largely unpublished. These later writings, however, are now all being pre-

der Metaphysik, 4th ed. (Frankfurt am Main, Vittorio Klostermann, 1973), 246-268, esp. 266-267. See 267 : « Er [Cohen] sah das Wesentliche der transzendentalen Methode darin, daß diese Methode anfängt mit einem Faktum; und nun hatte er diese allgemeine Defini- tion, Anfangen mit einem Faktum, um nach Möglichkeit dieses Faktums zu fragen, wieder- verengt, indem er als das eigentlich Fragwürdige immer wieder die mathematische Naturwissenschaft hinstelle. In dieser Einschränkung steht Kant nicht. Ich frage nach der Möglichkeit des Faktums Sprache. Wie kommt es, wie ist es denkbar, daß wir uns von Dasein zu Dasein in diesem Medium verständigen können? ».

10. See Cassirer, Erkenntnistheorie nebst den Grenzfragen der Logik und Denkpsycho- Io2ie. « Jahrbücher für Philosophie ». 3 0927). 78-79.

11. See Cassirer, Zur Theorie des Begriffs, « Kant-Studien », 33 (1928), 130: « Denn noch weit enger, als es in der früheren Darstellung der Fall war, erscheint jetzt für mich das logische Problem des Begriffs mit dem allgemeinen Bedeutungsproblem verknüpft ».

12. See Erkenntnistheorie nebst den Grundfragen der Logik und Denkpsychologie, « Jahr- bücher für Philosophie » (1927), 34 : « Immer deutlicher drängt sich uns die Einsicht auf, daß jenes Gebiet theoretischen Sinnes, das wir mit den Namen "Erkenntnis" und "Wah- rheit" bezeichen, nur eine, wie immer bedeutsame und fundamentale, Sinnschicht darstellt. Um sie zu verstehen, um sie in ihrer Struktur zu durchschauen, müssen wir diese Schicht anderen Sinn-Dimensionen gegenüberstellen und entgegenhalten - , müssen wir, mit anderen Worten, das Erkenntnisproblem und das Wahrheitsproblem als Sonderfälle des allgemeinen Bedeutungsproblems begreifen ».

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pared for publication by the Felix Meiner Verlag. They are being edited at the University of Düsseldorf by the author of this essay and Oswald Schwemmer13. The first volume includes the drafts for the unfinished fourth volume of the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. An English edition of this work is being prepared with Donald P. Verene; it will appear with Yale University Press.

A final opinion about the relevance of this and the other unpublished materials must wait until it is all readily accessible to the assessment of scholars everywhere. But it is not too early to raise questions. One question that occurs is: what does this turn to metaphysics tell us about Cassirer's understanding of the transcendental method? This question also cannot be answered conclusively here, but I want to suggest at least a way to look at it.

To begin, we can consider Cassirer's sources, the influence of other philosophical writers on his thought14. I say « to begin » because the search for such « sources » can never explain philosophical originality, and Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms is an original philosophy. Cassirer is fundamentally indebted to a variety of thinkers including Cusanus, Leibniz, Hegel, and Goethe in addition to Cohen and Natorp15. It might be argued that not only Natorp's Plato, but all

13. The Cassirer Nachlaß includes lectures, essays, course lectures, and drafts for mono- graphs as well as notes and a few letters. In conjunction with the publication of Cassirer's Nachlaß, Cassirer's correspondence, including extensive correspondence with Natorp, is being prepared for publication by Massimo Ferrari.

14. I differ here from Irene Kajon, who upholds the view that only Cohen and nobody else was fundamentally significant for the development of Cassirer's philosophy. See her Das Problem der Einheit des Bewußtseins im Denken Ernst Cassirers in Über Ernst Cassi- rers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, 249 : « Für die Entstehung und Entwicklung von Cassirers eigenem Denken sind jedoch nur ein einziger Autor und eine einzige philosophische Richtung von wesentlicher Bedeutung; in seinen seltenen autobiographischen Hin- weisen hat er die Grundlagen seiner Lehre immer auf den Einfluß von Hermann Cohens Kant-Büchern zurückführt ». In her article she mentions some of the drafts for the fourth volume of the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, viz. the early ones (184a and 184¿?) but not the later material (in 184c) where Cassirer develops his metaphysical theory of the Basisphänomene. There it is Goethe and not Cohen who influenced Cassirer. It does not diminish Cohen's significance to note that Hegel and Goethe were also fundamental influences.

15. On the relationship to Cusanus, see the long note by Gerda bon Bredow in her Einführung in Vom Globusspiel. De ludo globi. Übersetzung mit einer Einführung und Anmerkungen von Gerda von Bredow. Schriften des Nikolaus von Cues. In Auftrag der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften in deutscher Übersetzung (Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag, 1952), XXVII-XXVIII. On the relationship to Leibniz, see : A. G. Renea, La récep- tion de Leibniz et les difficultés de la reconstruction idéale de l'histoire de la science d'après Ernst Cassirer in Beiträge zur Wirkungsgeschichte von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, « Studia Leibnitiana Supplementia », vol. 26, 1986, 301-315 and H. Holzhey, Die Leibniz-Rezeption im "Neu-Kantianismus" der Marburger Schule, in Leibniz Werk und Wirkung, IV. Inter-

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figures from the history of philosophy were filtered in the Marburg school through a Kantian perspective. In such a perspective on the history of philosophy, as John Hermann Randall expressed it, we meet everywhere with « Vor-Kantianer »16. The role of Hegel is an exception. As Gadamer once put it, underlying the Marburg School is an « uneingestandener Hegelianismus »17, an unacknowledged Hegelianism. In his essay on Kant, Hegel and Cassirer: The Origins of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms Donald Verene has shown how fundamental the role of Hegel is in Cassirer's philosophy. Cassirer's attempt to come to grips with Hegelianism is an essential aspect of his « metaphysics ».

Neo-Kantianism was oriented to the theory of knowledge and opposed to metaphysic, and in his writing on the history of philosophy Cassirer pointed out that this is why its program was a historical step forward. The theory of knowledge, Erkenntnistheorie, overcame the uncertainty and confusion that prevailed in philosophy after the rise of science in the nineteenth century and in the face of the sterility of metaphysical systems18. But within the Marburg school this restriction to Erkenntnis- theorie finally came to be felt as a limitation. In Natorp's late work he set aside Cohen's principle - the guideline of the Marburg School - to begin with the factum of science and undertook to write about the real as such19. With this it seemed, as Cassirer wrote in his study on Natorp, « the dam was broken that Cohen had erected through careful critical effort in order to keep out unmethodical speculation »20. In his article on Natorp in the « Kant-Studien » Cassirer compares Natorp's last work

nationaler Leibniz-Kongreß. Hannover, 14 bis 19. november 1983. Herausgegeben von der Gottfried- Wilhelm-Leibniz-Gesellschaft. Hannover, n.d., 287-295. On the relationship to Hegel, see: Donald P. Verene, Kant, Hegel and Cassirer: The Origins of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, « Journal of the History of Ideas », 30 (1969), 33-46.

16. See Randall, Cassirer's Theory of History as Illustrated in bis Treatment of Renais- sance Thought, in The Philosophie of Ernst Cassirer. Ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp (New York, Tudor, 1949), 710.

17. H.-G. Gadamer, Die philosophische Bedeutung Paul Natorps, Festrede zum 100. Geburtstag gehalten am 24. Januar 1954 in der Universität Marburg. In: P. Natorp, Philo- sophische Systematik. Aus dem Nachlaß herausgegeben von Hans Natorp (Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag, 1958), XVI: « Schon im Ansatz der Cohenschen Wiederentdeckung des Grundgedanken der Kritik steckt ein uneingestandener Hegelianismus ».

18. See The Problem of Knowledge. Philosophy, Science, and History since Hegel, esp. 4-6. 19. See P. Natorp, Vorlesungen über praktische Philosophie (Erlangen, Verlag der phi-

losophischen Akademie, 1925), esp. Chapter II on Grundkategorien. 20. See Paul Natorp, « Kant-Studien », 30 (1925), 290. The full passage says: « Denn

jetzt scheint der Damm gebrochen, den Cohen in kritischer Vorsicht errichtet hatte und den er, beim Stande der Philosophie seiner Zeit errichten mußte, wenn er sie von Über- griffen einer unmethodischen Spekulation befreien und sie von den "sicheren Gang der Wissenschaft*' den Kant für sie gefordert hatte, zurückbringen wollte».

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to « a fugue in which the voices of all the other great figures of German Idealism, from Nicolas of Cusa to Hegel, are heard one after another » (« Aber zugleich treten in Natorps Buch, wie in einer großen Fuge, die Stimmen all der anderen großen Denker des deutschen Idealismus, von Nikolaus von Kues bis auf Hegel, nacheinander hervor »)21. The most important voice in this fugue is Hegel's: « As far as Hegel is finally concerned, his Name is mentioned relatively infrequently - but perhaps only because the agreement with his basic speculative principle and with the method of dialectic is apparent everywhere even without such men- tioning »22. That is, the self-development of Natorp's Kategorie is too close to Hegel's Begriff to need pointing out. In his Natorp article Cas- sirer carefully draws out the difference between the demands of the Marburg school method, exemplified, e.g., in Natorp's Die logische Grund- lagen der exact en Wissenschaften (1910), and the speculative and dialec- tical direction of Natorp's late work. But what does Cassirer himself think of Natorp's embracing metaphysics?

Cassirer does not pass judgment on Natorp's late work; he makes a point rather of indicating that he and Natorp agreed in their last conver- sation on the centrality of the problem of the symbol23. Has the time passed that philosophy needed to refrain from metaphysical inquiry? We do not gain the answer from the Natorp essay. But we can see Cassirer's answer in his own later work. The answer is: yes, but metaphysics cannot follow its former methods. It cannot reduce all reality to logic, a criticism we find already in the general statement of the problem of the philosophy of symbolic forms (PsF 1: 15; PSF 1: 83).

Cassirer did not follow Natorp. Cassirer's greatest debt to Hegel was to the Hegel of the Phänomenologie des Geistes, not the Wissenschaft der Logik24. Moreover, as he developed his view of metaphysics, the influence of other figures besides Hegel came to the fore. The two I will focus on here seem at first glance not even to belong to the history of philosophy, nevertheless theit significance is fundamental. I am referring to Goethe and Kurt Goldstein.

21. Paul Natorp, « Kant-Studien », 30 (1925), 295. 22. Paul Natorp, « Kant-Studien », 30 (1925), 295: « Was endlich Hegel betrifft, so wird

sein Name verhältnismäßig selten gennant - aber vielleicht nur deshalb, weil die Übereins- timmung mit seinem spekulativen Grundprinzip und mit der Methode der Dialektik auch ohne solche Nennung überall deutlich zu Tage tritt ».

23. Paul Natorp, « Kant-Studien », 30 (1925), 26. ¿4. bee v erene, Kant, Hegel ana Cassirer: me origins oj me Philosophy oj òymoolic

Forms, e.g., 42: « Cassirer [...] regards the culmination of the Phenomenology of Mind in the Science of Logic as the major defect in Hegel's system ».

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I do not choose Goethe and Goldstein at random, for in Cassirer 's application of their ideas they both contribute in the same way to the development of the philosophy of symbolic forms, viz. to Cassirer's efforts to avoid subjectivism and to explicate the metaphysical basis of the symbolic forms.

II.

That Goethe is significant to Cassirer is obvious, even superficially. Cassirer constantly mentions Goethe; Goethean language and allusions permeate Cassirer's writing. He published as much or more on Goethe during his lifetime than on any of the above named thinkers. But the philosophical import of Goethe cannot be gauged by the amount he wrote about Goethe nor by how Goethe influenced the style of his prose. The philosophical import of Goethe's world view is seen in the prominence Cassirer gives to Goethe's notion of the Urphänomen (irreducible « primary phenomenon »), especially in his later works. The following statement from 1942, first published in 1979, is typical of what I mean: « The fundamental reality, the Urphänomen, in the sense of Goethe, the ultimate phenomenon may, indeed, be designated by the term « life ». This phenomenon is accessible to everyone; but it is incomprehensible in the sense that it admits of no definition, no abstract theoretical explanation. 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 ... Life, reality, being, existence are nothing but different terms referring to one and the same fundamental fact. These terms do not describe a fixed, rigid, substantial thing. They are to be understood as names of a process »25.

The point of the transcendental method, as Cassirer pointed out, was that it starts with a given and asks about the conditions of its possibility, but here the transcendental method is not applicable. Its application to an Urphänomen is ruled out by definition; if it were applicable, then we would not be talking about a primary phenomenon. Upon closer scru- tiny we notice much else in Cassirer's philosophy that does not derive from

25. Language and Art II (1942) in E. Cassirer, Symbol, Myth, and Culture. Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer 1935-1945. Ed. by Donald Phillip Verene (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1979), 193-194.

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transcendental philosophy, for example, the Hegelian (actually: Simme- lian) notion that Leben transforms itself into the sphere of Geist - an idea found even in Cassirer's earlier writing26. Unlike many contemporary Philosophers, but like Peirce or Whitehead, Cassirer foresaw the possibility of developing a new kind of systematic philosophy oriented to the problem of meaning27. Here Goethe's influence is as its greatest.

The Goethean element in Cassirer's thought has been noticed before, but is has always seemed to be a matter grafted onto his philosophy from outside. As Isabel Stearn once put it: « one feels that Cassirer's references to Goethe suggest a certain completion to his thought which he could not as a critical [i.e., Kantian] thinker, allow himself explicitly to formulate in a conclusive manner »28. In his published works, Cas- sirer appeals to Goethe's notion of the Urphänomen again and again without, however, ever examining it from the standpoint of his own thought. We are told that the expressive function of meaning is an Urphä- nomen (PSF 3: 87; PSF 3: 102), that the experience of the living human body is an Urphänomen (PSF 3: 99-103; PSF 3: 116-21) and that the same is true of symbolische Prägnanz* The « person » is an Urphänomen19. Time is an Urphänomen (PSF 3: 205; PsF 176). The list could be extended. Such phenomena cannot be explained by any method without thereby losing the phenomenon in question.

The chief material reason why this dimension of Cassirer's thought has proved so puzzling is that the primary texts on the subject - all written while Cassirer was teaching in Sweden at the university of Göte- borg in the 1930s - have never been published. When Cassirer left Sweden

26. This notion is already found early in the first volume (PSF 1, 113-114); cf. PsF 1, 51: « Das Leben tritt aus der Sphäre des bloß naturgegebenen Daseins heraus: es wandelt und vollendet sich zur Form des "Geistes". Cf. G. Simmel, Die Wendung zur Idee, in Lebensanschauung, Vier metaphysische Kapitel (München und Leipzig Duncker & Humblot, 1918), 28-98.

27. An early indication is found in Einsteins Theory of Relativity (1921): « It is the task of systematic philosophy, which extends far beyond the theory of knowledge [Erkennt- nistheorie], to free the ideas of the world from this on-seidedness. It has to grasp the whole system of symbolic forms, the application of which produces for us the concept of an ordered reality, and by virtue of which subject and object, ego and world are sepa- rated and opposed to each other in definite form ». Substance and Function and Einstein's theory of Relativity (New York, Dover Books, 1953), 447. Cf. Zur Einsteinschen Relativi- tätstheorie (1921), rpt. in Zur Modernen Physik (Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesells- chaft, 1957), 109-110.

28. I. Stearns, Review of The Problem of Knowledge by Ernst Cassirer. « The Review of Metaphysics» 5, n. 1 (September 1951), 109-124, quote from 119.

29. Cassirer, William Stern, Zur Wiederkehr seines Todestages, « Acta Psychologia », 5 (1940), 9.

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in 1941 to go to America he left all of his papers behind with his son Georg in Göteberg30. His wife retrived them on a visit to Göteborg in July 1946 (Cassirer died in 1945). The papers were sold in 1964, along with all the literary rights, to Yale University Press. Yale Press had an initial list of the papers made by Dr. John Bacon, today a professor of philosophy at the University of Sydney in Australia, but the actual content and significance of the papers was long unknown. In a letter of August 16, 1970 to the author of this essay, Charles W. Hendel (Chairman of the Yale Philosophy Department during Cassirer's stay there and an advocate of Cassirer's thought in America) indicated that he was himself unaware of what was in Cassirer's Nachlaß, It was not until Donald Verene inspected the Cassirer papers in 1972 that the nature of their contents was clearly established31; he published a description of them in 197932.

Sources in the Nachlaß of greatest relevance to the explication of Cas- sirer's notion of the Urphänomen include (1) drafts for the fourth volume of the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (2), the manuscript for a monograph entitled Ziele und Wege der Wirklichkeitserkenntnis, and (3) a long critical essay on the Vienna Circle. All of these texts examine and explicate Goethe's notion of the Urphänomen and explicitly appro- priate it for the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen under the term « Basisphänomen ». Cassirer also applies this new terminology in other unpublished writings which also date from the 1930s. In the drafts for the fourth volume of the Philosophie des symbolischen Formen, Cassirer criticizes Kant's conception of « Metaphysik » as something transcen- ding all possible experience and goes on to develop his own theory of a « Metaphysik der symbolischen Formen » whose central notion is that of Basisphänomene33. I cannot summarize this volume here, but its direction can be simply stated: not the Concept, not Categories, not Logic, but « primary phenomena », Urphänomene, are the final realities that philosophy must understand. The problem with all past metaphysics is not that it turned away from these primary phenomena (Kant's conception of metaphysics), but that it cut out or eliminated part of reality in order to declare one of the primary phenomena to be the absolutely

30. For information about Ernst Cassirer's papers and other help I thank Prof. Peter Cassirer, University of Göteborg.

31. The author of this essay was introduced to the contents of Cassirer's papers at that time. 32. See Appendix: A Description of Cassirer's Papers. In E. Cassirer, Symbol, Myth,

and Culture, 293-298. 33. « Zur Metaphysik der symbolischen Formen » is the title of one of the drafts (1846);

however, the attempt to develop a metaphysics of Basisphänomene is found in 184c.

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real. Cassirer plays on the words Abwendung (turn away) and Abblen- dung (to partially cover over or shade out) to make this point. He offers an account of the primary phenomena and finally applies his account to the history of metaphysics itself, which he reconstructs systematically in terms of the three basic primary phenomena. He calls these three primary phenomena by various names, for they function differently in different contexts. He introduces them and often speaks about them, by reference to three Goethean maxims34. There he refers to the three basic phenomena as: the Monas (the whole of life), the activity of life, and the products of life35. The parallel to the three basic forms of the symbolic function in the third volume of the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (Ausdruck, Darstellung and reine Bedeutung) is obvious. Cassirer had already called attention to the term Monas in these Goethe maxims in Freiheit und Form (1918), where he interprets Goethe's use of the term as a borrowing from Leibniz36. Earlier still, in his commentary to his Leibniz (1906), one finds Cassirer explicating Leibniz's « monad » by reference to Goethe: « So we arrive at the concept of the " Monad" as " geprägte Form die lebend sich entwickelt" [shaped form that develops by living] »37. Here we have an illustration of how deeply rooted Goetheanism is in Cassirer's approach to philosophical ideas. When he finally thematized the Goetheanism in his philosophy in the 1930s it was only the attempt to make explicit what had been there from the start.

How does all this relate to the earlier three volumes of the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen ? To answer this question we need to turn to the work of the Gestalttheorist Kurt Goldstein.

34. Maxims 381-393 in Hecker's edition: Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen. Nach den Handschriften des Goethe- und Schiller- Archivs herausgegeben von Max Hecker. Schriften der Goethe-Gesellschaft, vol. 21 (Weimar, Verlag der Goethe-Gesellschaft, 1907), 76-77.

35. « Leben, die rotierende Bewegung der Monas » (maxim 391), « Eingreifen der leben- digbeweglichen Monas » (maxim 392), and « Handlung und That, als Wort und Schrift » (maxim 393). In folder 184c, section « Basisphänomene (Urphänomene) » ßl, first page.

36. Freiheit und Form (Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1916), 281. 37. Cf. also Cassirer's Commentary on Monadologie. In G.W. Leibniz, Hauptschriften

zur Grundlegung der Philolophie. Übersetzt von Arthur Buchenau. Durchgesehen und mit Einleitungen und Erläuterungen herausgegeben von Ernst Cassirer (Leipzig, Verlag der Dürr'schen Buchhandlung, 1906), 437, note 482: « So gelangen wir zum Begriff der "Monade" als "geprägte Form die lebend sich entwickelt" ». The quotation is from Goethe, Urworte. Orphisch. AAIMQN, Dämon. In Goethe, Werke. Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Großherzogin Sophie von Sachsen. Erste Abtheilung. Werke. 55 Bde. (Weimar, Hermann Böhlau, 1887-1918), vol. 3, 95, 8: « Geprägte Form die lebend sich entwickelt ».

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III.

Unlike in the case of Goethe, Cassirer's debt to Kurt Goldstein is not apparent in the number of times he cites his works38. Goldstein was a neurologist and psychiatrist and a leading figure in Gestalt-theory, an editor with Koffka and Wertheimer of the Gestalt-theory journal « Psycho- logische Forschungen »; he was also Ernst Cassirer's cousin and lifelong friend with whom he was in frequent personal contact39. Goldstein was Cassirer's in house expert on Gestalt-theory, and it was this school of thought that provided him with the principle of « symbolische Prägnanz ». I have argued elsewhere that « symbolische Prägnanz » is the « highest point » of Cassirer's Philosophie der symbolischen Formen40. With the notion of symbolische Prägnanz, Cassirer says, he hopes to avoid the subjectivism of Kant and Husserl41.

Symbolic Pregnance is best understood in contrast to Cassirer's key term: « symbolic form ». « Symbolic form » is defined so as to apply to cultural symbol systems, i.e., systems that use or depend upon « signs » originating in a cultural tradition: words, pictures, gestures, etc. The definition echoes Humboldt' s famous distinction between language as a fixed system (ergon) and as living speech fenergiea); Cassirer writes: « Under a " symbolic form" should be understood all those energies of mind [jede Energie des Geistes] through which an intelligent content of meaning [geistiger Bedeutungsgebalt] is bound to a concrete sensory sign [konk-

38. Cassirer does cite numerous essays by Goldstein, primarily in the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms.

39. Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) was a neurologist and psychiatrist. From 1917-1933 he was the director of the Institut zur Erforschung der Folgeerscheinungen von Hirnverlet- zungen in Frankfurt am Main. After his Emigration 1934 to the USA he was a Professor there at different institutions including Columbia University. For an account of his Gestalt- theory of the organism see esp. Der Aufbau des Organismus (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1934). On the early friendship between Cassirer and Goldstein, see Kurt Goldstein, 1878-1965, The Reach of the Mind: Essays in Memory of Kurt Goldstein, edited by Marianne L. Simmel (New York, Springer Publishing Co., 1968), 3.

4U. krois, Cassirer, esp. dz-oz, iuö-iuy. 41. bee his criticism ot Doth in the chapter « symDonscne hragnanz ». in Kant s concept

of « Synthesis » he sees an ambiguity, so that an « an sich bestehendes "transzendentales Subjekt", appears to exist as the "Urheber" der Gültigkeit der reinen Verstandesbegriffe » (PsF 3, 227). In Husserl' s distinction between sensory « hyle » and intentional « morphe » he sees a dualist doctrine, that assumes a « coming into being » of meaning in an alien element [ihm fremden Schicht] (PsF 3, 321).

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retes sinnliches Zeichen] and is internally associated with this sign »42. To paraphrase: a symbolic form is a particular way of interpreting signs. By contrast, « symbolische Prägnanz » is defined as « the way in which a perception as a sensory experience contains at the same time a certain nonintuitive meaning which it immediately and concretely represents »43. In contrast to the definition of « symbolic form » only a « way » [Art] there is meaning [Sinn] in the sensory [Sinnlichen] is mentioned, instead of an « Energie des Geistes » which couples meaning [Sinn] to a sign [Zeichen], Symbolische Prägnanz does not involve an « act » of Inter- pretation; no « Energie of mind » is mentioned in its definition. It does not require any Kantian synthesis or depend upon intentionality, any « sinn-verleihende Akte » in Husserl's sense.

« Symbolische Prägnanz » is a Gestalt-phänomenological idea. Gestalt- psychology's most important principle is the « Gesetz der Prägnanz » [law of pregnance], also known as the law of « good Gestalt ». It is the main concept of Gestalt-psychology. The law of pregnance states that, « Psychological organization will always be as "good" as the prevailing conditions allow »**, i.e., that it appears as closed, stabile, rounded or otherwise organized. Cassirer did not publish an explanation of the relationship between « symbolische Prägnanz » and the Gestalt idea of Prä- gnanz, but interesting discussions are found among his unpublished papers. In one place he writes: « Vom Standpunkt der Gestaltpsychologie [ents- pricht] jeder besonderen Art von Gestalt und Gestaltung auch je eine besondere Weise der "Praegnanz" [...] es gibt räumliche und zeitliche Praegnanz, theoretische und aesthetische Praegnanz - Ja wir müssen von unserem Standpunt aus hier noch weiter gehen und sagen: die spezifische Besonderung der "Praegnanz" begründet und ermöglicht erst die spezifische Verschiedenheit der "Gestalten" - alle Vergegenwärtigung ist

42. « Unter einer "symbolischen Form" soll jede Energie des Geistes verstanden werden, durch welche ein gestiger Bedentungsgehalt an ein konkretes sinnliches Zeichen geknüpft und diesem Zeichen innerlich zugeeignet wird ». Der Begriff der symbolischen Form im Aufbau der Geisteswissenschaften (1921). Rpt. in Wesen und Wirkung des Symbolbegriffs (Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969), 175.

43. PSF 3, 201; PsF 3, 235 : « Unter "symbolische Prägnanz" soll also die Art verstanden werden, in der ein Wahrnehmungserlebnis, als "sinnliches Erlebnis, zugleich einen bestimmten anschaulichen "Sinn" in sich faßt und ihn zur unmittelbaren konkreten Dars- tellung bringt ».

44. K. Koffka, The Principles of Gestalt Psychology (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1935), 110. For a more recent discussion of Prägnanz from a contemporary viewpoint in J.R. Pomerantz and M. Kubovy, Perceptual Organization. An Overview, in Perceptual Organization, edited bl Michael Kubovy und James R. Pomerantz (Hillsdale, Lawrence Erlbaum 1981), 436-449.

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immer Vergegenwärtigung in einem bestimmten "Sinne" »45. Cassirer interprets this appearing « in einem bestimmten "Sinne" » [in a certain "sense"] as a symbolic function, hence he speaks of « symbolic » Prä- gnanz.

Gestalt-theory, especially as it was developed by Goldstein influenced the « non-egological » school of phenomenology typified by Gurwitsch46 and Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty in fact drew from Cassirer as much as from Goldstein himself47. Goldstein is most well-known for his studies of aphasia in which (with Adhémar Gelb) he distinguished between the « concrete » behavior and speech of aphasiacs, for whom the world only consists of present tasks as distinguished from the abstract « categorical » behavior of healthy individuals, who are capable of represen- ting the world in general and abstract ways48. Cassirer saw in Goldstein's work an empirical illustration and confirmation of his inter-

45. Ernst Cassirer, envelope 104, Manuscript: « Praegnanz, symbolische Ideation », impa- ginateci. The quoted passage is found on the last two pages of the manuscript. In transla- tion: « From the standpoint of Gestalt-psychology every particular kind of Gestalt and Gestalt-formation also corresponds to a particular kind of "Prägnanz" [...] there are spatial and temporal Prägnanz, theoretical and aesthetic Prägnanz - yes, we must from our standpoint here go even further and say: the specific particularization of "Prägnanz" originally founds and makes possible the specific differences of "Gestalten"- all making-present is always a making-present in a certain "sense" ». I thank Yale University Press for per- mission to quote from this manuscript.

46. Gurwitsch's Dissertation (Göttingen, 1928) is based on Gestalt theory: Phänomeno- logie der Thematik und des reinen Ich: Studien über Beziehungen von Gestalttheorie und Phänomenologie, it appeared in the Gestalt school's journal, « Psychologische Forschung », 12 (1929), 278-381. Gurwitsch and Cassirer wherehus both interested in Goldstein's work on the difference between the « concrete » (konkreten) and « abstract » (kategorialen) behavior of aphasiacs and their relationship to the world. But were Gurwitsch saw a convergence between Goldstein's explanation of aphasia and Husserl' s theory of Ideation, Cassirer saw in Goldstein's work an illustration and confirmation of his interpretation of the constitutive role of the symbolic function. On Gurwitsch's association in Frankfurt with Goldstein and his use of Gestalt-Theory, see L.E. Embree, « Biographical Sketch of Aron Gurwitsch », Life-World and Consciousness (Evanston, Northwestern University Press 1972), xix-xxi. For more information about Gurwitsch and Cassirer, see my essay Problematik, Eigenart und Aktualität in Über Ernst Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, 24-25 and 38-39 notes 25-27.

47. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (Pans, Gallimard, 1945). When Merleau-ponty says « Toute sensation est déjà pregnante d'un sens » (343) the idea and terminus are Cassirer's symbolische Prägnanz. See his uses of this notion, esp. 338-339, also 49, 76-77, 81-82, 152-153, 155, 178, 183, 216, 227, 275, 337-339, 466. Merleau-Ponty's early work is devoted to Gestalt-theory: see La Structure du Comportement (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1949).

48. A. Gelb and K. Goldstein, Psychologische Analysen hirnpathologischer Fälle (Leipzig, J.A. Barth, 1920). See, e.g., Cassirer's brief summary comment about the significance of this distinction between categorical and concrete, PsF 3, 322-323; PSF 3, 275-276.

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pretation of the constitutive role of the symbolic function in the organism's behavior and world.

Goldstein's « concrete » behavior remains largely within the limits of what Cassirer called the expressive function of understanding while abstract « categorical » behavior corresponds to an understanding of the world in terms of the representational and significative functions (Darstellungs- and reinen Bedeutungsfunktion). Cassirer' s observations at Goldstein's Frankfurt clinic of the behavior and speech of patients suffering from aphasia49 provided the background of the chapter on the pathology of the symbolic function in the third volume of the Philoso- phie der symbolischen Formen. Cassirer thought of this chapter as a « negative proof » of his theory of the symbol: « the process of the world's "symbolization" discloses its value and meaning where it no longer operates free and unhindered, but must struggle and make its way against obstacles » (PSF 3: 277; PsF 3: 325). Cassirer's anthropolo- gical theory in An Essay on Man is foreshadowed in this pathology chapter: « the animal lives in his environment; he does not place himself over against it and so represent it. This acquisition of the world as idea, is, rather, the aim and product of the symbolic forms » (PSF 3: 276; PsF 3: 322-323). The emphasis in Cassirer scholarship has always fallen on the latter part of this statement. But what about the former - life in an environment?

This quotation appears to put all the emphasis upon the acquisition of the world as idea. And Cassirer frequently called attention to the deficiency of philosophical positions that failed to recognize the importance of this acquisition. For example, Karlfried Gründer rightly pointed out that for Cassirer Heidegger's analysis of space was more an examina- tion of the animal world than of the human world50. In fact, Cassirer equated Heidegger's analysis of Zuhandenheit in Being and Time with Goldstein's account of the limited symbolic activity of the aphasiac51, but this does not mean that the philosophy of symbolic forms had to or did ignore the questions which concern « life philosophers », among

49. On Cassirer's contacts with Goldstein in Frankfurt, see PSF 3, 210 note 7 and 217, note 19; PsF 3, 244 note 2 and 252, note 3.

50. K. Gründer, Cassirer und Heidegger in Davos 1929, in Über Ernst Cassirers philosophie der symbolischen Formen, 297 '.

51. See Cassirer, « Die Sprache und der Aufbau der Gegenstandswelt » (1932-1933), rpt. in E. Cassirer, Symbol, Technik, Sprache, ed. by Ernst Wolf gang Orth and John Michael Krois with Josef M. Werle (Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag, 1985), 133. Cf. the discussion of this passage, Einleitung, XXIV-XXV.

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which Cassirer counted Heidegger52. Goldstein's Gestalt-theory offered part of Cassirer's conceptual vocabulary for this53. The « pathology » chapter, like the one preceding it - on « symbolic pregnance » - are inconceivable without the work of Goldstein. The world gains or looses symbolic pregnance, but it is always a Gestalt in which the Person, World, and Symbol always appear holistically in a correlation54. The philosophy of symbolic forms was oriented to the philosophical question of the whole, not to critique of knowledge. It addressed the problem of the subject by explicating it in terms of the whole, symbolically pregnant, world, and understood this world in both an « idealistic » and a « realistic » sense. Indeed, for Cassirer, these are both only « names for a process ».

Goldstein's analyses converged in Cassirer's thought with Goethe's conception of the Urphänomen which as Cassirer said, « may, indeed, be designated by the term "life" ». This direction of thought led away from the transcendental method, but it did not lead simply to anthropo- logy. It led to the « metaphysics » of « life » by which he sought to complete his philosophy.

IV.

This brings us back to the question of Cassirer's relationship to Neo- Kantianism. I put forward these comments about Cassirer's debt to Goethe and Goldstein in order to illustrate an area of his thought that did not remain within the limits prescribed by the transcendental method as defined by Neo-Kantian theory of knowledge. Like Natorp, Cassirer felt the res- traints of such a philosophical outlook, but in his attempt to come to terms with the problem of metaphysics Cassirer remained phenomenolo- gical, in the Goethean sense. I have not solved the problem of his relationship to the Marburg School, but rather given a preview of further areas of Cassirer's thought that will need future investigation. In parti-

52. See E. Cassirer, "Geist" und "Leben ": Heidegger, « Philosophy and Rhetoric », 16 (1983), 164-166.

53. Another important part is Uexküll's theoretical biology, whose importance cannot be discussed here.

54. « rrom the standpoint ot pnenomenoiogicai inquiry mere is no more a matter in itself than a form in itself; there are only total experiences » (PSF 3, 199), « so wenig einen "Stoff an sich", wie eine "Form an sich", es gibt immer wieder nur Gesamterleb- nisse » (PsF3, 231).

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cular, the relationship between Natorp's later writings and Cassirer's needs to be explored. Scholars have long considered Neo-Kantianism an exhaus- tive interpretative platform for the investigation of Cassirer's philosophy; that perspective needs broadening, particularly if it equates Neo-Kantianism with Erkenntnistheorie. The Marburg school itself was broader than the label « Neo-Kantianism » implies. In Cassirer's later writings we see how the ideas of the Marburg school could enjoy further development without a commitment to the primacy of the theory of knowledge. In any case, for the final word on these questions and on Cassirer's philosophy itself, it is still too early.

John Michael Krois*

* Article paru initialement dans // cannochiale, n° 1/2, janvier-août 1991, p. 151-168.

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cassirer, neo-kantismo y metafisica

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