Critica de Cassirer a Heid.

8/8/2019 Critica de Cassirer a Heid.

1/43

Myth and Modernity: Cassirer's Critique of HeideggerAuthor(s): Peter Eli GordonSource: New German Critique, Vol. 94, Secularization and Disenhantment (Winter, 2005), pp.127-168Published by: New German CritiqueStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30040953Accessed: 02/03/2009 10:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ngc .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with thescholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform thatpromotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

New German Critique is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to New GermanCritique.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30040953?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ngchttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ngchttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/30040953?origin=JSTOR-pdf


2/43

Myth and Modernity.Cassirer Critique ofHeidegger

Peter Eli Gordon

"The philosopher s a mythologist."- Plato

What is the relation between fascism and myth?l For the Frankfurt

School, fascism was not a reversion to barbarism but a pathologizedextremity of enlightenment tself. Following Weber's ead, Adorno andHorkheimer saw enlightenment as a transhistorical ather than a dis-cretely historical process, coordinating host of distinct phenomena; hedisenchantment of the world, the secularization of human conscious-ness, the "extirpation f animism," and the slow displacement of mime-sis by symbolic and conceptual thought. While they acknowledgedfascism's atavistic appearance especially its calls for a return o fate,

blood and soil - they denied it could be characterized n essence as amerely retrograde departure from civilization. Still bound, howeverweakly, to Marxian habits of thought, Adorno and Horkheimer aw fas-cism not as a lapse but as the crisis-stage n history's development, asthe apotheosis of bourgeois subjectivity and a dialectical consequence of"instrumental eason." Because myth is born from the desire to under-stand and thereby to achieve some mastery over one's environment,myth, in this sense at least, is "already" nlightenment. But in the con-text of technological proficiency and social rationalization, nlighten-ment devolves into a compulsive will to mastery without self-reflection

1. For comments and criticism, I am grateful to Martin Jay, Warren Breckman,Samuel Moyn, Jonathan kolnik, Eugene Sheppard, ohn McCole, and Thomas Meyer.

127


3/43

128 Myth and Modernity

or normative orientation. Enlightenment, hen, is already, in its one-sided and distorted orm, at least, a new species of myth. And fascism,

they claimed, was the indisputable pawn of modernity, he culminatingphase of the laborious and collective effort by which humanity, havingoriginally sought release from its mythic fear of nature, ended in theliquidation of the freedom t aimed to achieve. A political correlative ofmodern advertising, ascism succeeded by means of the cynical manipu-lation of desire: It was, in sum, "fake myth."2

This theory, which Adorno and Horkheimer put forth in the 1947study, Dialectic of Enlightenment, s but one variant of the more com-

mon observation hat fascism is not truly "irrational" ut only a simu-lacrum of mythic unreason. Similar, though less remembered oday isErnst Cassirer's ast great contribution o intellectual history, The Mythof the State, a work composed n American exile and published, posthu-mously, in 1946. Like Horkheimer nd Adorno, Cassirer saw the pecu-liarity of National Socialism in its effort to forge an entire tissue ofbelief by artificial means: "The new political myths," Cassirer wrote,"do not grow up freely; they are not wild fruits of an exuberant magi-nation. They are artificial hings fabricated by very skilful and cunningartisans." n contrast o those liberal-minded heorists who found conso-lation in the view that Nazism was mere barbarism nd primitive senti-ment, Cassirer discerned its specific modernity: "It has been reservedfor the twentieth century, our own great technical age, to develop a newtechnique of myth. Henceforth myths can be manufactured n the samesense and according to the same methods as any other modernweapon-as machine guns or airplanes."3

A promising feature of this theory lay in the claim that fascism, while

essentially modern, succeeds by manipulating the pre-modern or"mythic" dimension of human experience. From this perspective, fasc-ism is a species of secularism cloaked only for effect in the guise offaith. This view has enduring merit not least because it promotes thewatchful attitude hat we moderns must never consider ourselves fullybeyond the fascist danger. Indeed, there is no getting "beyond" hazardsinhering in modernity itself. But the theory is not without ts disadvan-tages. As Jiirgen Habermas has claimed, the thesis that fascism is the

2. Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, hilo-sophical Fragments, rans. Edmund ephcott Stanford: tanford UP, 2002) 9.

3. Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale UP, 1946) 355, here-after, MS.


4/43

Peter Eli Gordon 129

spawn of instrumental eason may place too little trust n the emancipatorypotential of human rationality nd can quickly devolve into a totalizing

polemic against reason as such. Indeed, the ceaseless critique of reasongone wrong can easily encourage a mood of fatalistic and stylish pessi-mism that sabotages he liberatory work of enlightenment efore it haseven begun.4 From another perspective, however, one might claim thetheory places not too little confidence in reason but too much. By char-acterizing fascism as an outcome of modernity, he theory seems to rep-resent modernity as having truly surpassed myth. Only a free anddisbelieving subject, it seems, is sufficiently demythologized o wield

myth as an instrument of cynical control. The theory of fascism as a"technique of myth," in other words, may presuppose a human subjectwho has actually achieved horoughgoing isenchantment.

My claim in this essay is that there may be no such thing as a modemrnand rational subject who is entirely "disenchanted," n the sense that thiswould entail the capacity o achieve rational mastery over one's constitu-tive meaning. Considered broadly, "myth" might indicate a structure ofsocial meaning that seems both independent f the subject's agency andnot fully transparent o human reason - the mythical notion, for exam-ple, that one's life-course is determined by the Fates rather han one'sown rational choices. A "demythologized" ubject, then, is capable ofrational self-transparency, nd thus capable of governing tself in accor-dance with nothing besides its own rules. The typical source for this sec-ular model of the self is Kant's epistemology and moral philosophy, andin this respect, my argument s directed against the conspicuous Kan-tianism hat underwrites he "modernist" heory of fascism.

The guiding insight of this essay is as follows: The modernist heory

tends to regard any and all departures rom liberal-enlightenment oli-tics as manipulated hence its frequent recourse to terms such as"fake," or "jargon," r "technique," and it thereby presupposes hatonly the liberal view is "true." Thus, all other modes of political beliefmust be explained by imagining that a liberal-enlightenment ubjectsomehow stands behind those politics as their disbelieving creator. But,one might object, this view rests upon an implausible heory of socialmeaning. An enlightenment ontology of the self has a peculiarly self-

credentializing tatus in that it dismisses any alternative political beliefsas unreal. Yet the challenge - indeed, the true horror of fascism is

4. Jiirgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Twelve Lectures,trans. Frederick Lawrence Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987) esp. 106-130.


5/43


that it represents a mode of political belief that cannot be categorizedand consequently dismissed as a mere departure rom the normative

contents of modernity. Rather han offer some bold doctrine of my own,this essay merely seeks to reconstruct possible alternative o the Kan-tian view by exploring the historical encounter between two philoso-phers, Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger.5 As explained below, thedisagreement between them hinged upon two contrasting ets of ideasconcerning myth, subjectivity, nd self-transparency.

The confrontation etween Cassirer and Heidegger spanned more thantwo decades, from 1923 to 1946, and was punctuated by the famous

encounter at Davos, Switzerland, n the spring of 1929. Witnesses o theDavos debate have recalled an almost mythic contrast between Heideg-ger's dark haired and youthful appearance, his abrupt, perhaps evenaggressive demeanor, nd Cassirer's prematurely hite hair, his professo-rial eloquence, and his conciliatory, f perhaps ess inspiring, tyle. WhileCassirer represented he older values of humanist reason, the uncannystrains of Heidegger's so-called "existential" ntology bespoke a newsense of urgency and pathos seizing the younger generation t the end ofthe 1920s. Student memoirs of the event are almost unanimous n thejudgment that Heidegger "won," but for many critics, Heidegger's deci-sion to embrace Nazism four years later expresses he already atent ruthof their debate: Pierre Bourdieu, or example, has organized he entire nar-rative of his polemic, The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger, aroundthe assumption hat the Heidegger-Cassirer ebate was an encrypted bat-tle between liberalism and conservative revolution.6 Politics aside, thephilosophical ubstance f their dispute remains definitive or Continentalthought today: Cassirer's allegiance to an enlightenment model of the

autonomous ubject stands in stark contrast o Heidegger's view of theself as "thrown," s bound by meanings t cannot harness ully to rationalcommand. The debate between them is thus a significant chapter n theongoing struggle o define he ontologico-political ubject of modernity.

Cassirer's Philosophy of Form

Emrnst assirer 1874-1945) was one of the most accomplished philos-ophers to emerge from Central Europe in the early decades of the

5. For important ocumentation nd analysis, see John Michael Krois, "Cassirer'sUnpublished Critique f Heidegger," hilosophy and Rhetoric 16.3 (1983): 147-159.

6. Pierre Bourdieu, L 'Ontologie olitique de Martin Heidegger (Paris: Editions deminuit, 1988). The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger, rans. Peter Collier (Stanford,CA: Stanford UP, 1991).


6/43


twentieth century.7 In 1894, Cassirer attended Georg Simmel's lectures onKant, and beginning in 1896, he studied under Hermann Cohen in Mar-

burg. Cassirer absorbed many of the characteristic assumptions of the neo-Kantian movement, ncluding n admiration or the scientific model in phi-losophy, an unflagging onfidence n the rationality f culture, nd a strongattachment o progressive politics.8 Although of Jewish descent, Cassirer,like many German ews in the age of assimilation, maintained imited iesto the Jewish faith.9 His real devotion was to scholarship. rom his earli-est study, Leibniz' System n seinen wissenschaftlichen rundlagen 1902),his early four-volume nvestigation, The Problem of Knowledge n Philoso-

phy and Science (1906-7) and his first contribution o the philosophy ofscience, Substance and Function (1910), he displayed an astoundingbreadth f erudition nd an uncompromising idelity o the rationalist rin-ciples of the Enlightenment. He wrote a biography, Kant' Life andThought 1918), which was meant o accompany new edition of Kant'scollected works in the 1920s. Later, he authored he classic study of eigh-teenth-century hought, The Philosophy f the Enlightenment 1932).

Beginning in the 1920s, Cassirer nvested a great deal of energy indeveloping a philosophical account of mythological consciousness. Hismonumental, three-volume work, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms(hereafter, PSF), explores the "formative" ctivity of consciousness inthe spheres of: "language" Vol. I, 1923), "mythical hinking" Vol. II,1925), and the "phenomenology of knowledge" (Vol. III, 1929). Afourth volume, on "the metaphysics of symbolic forms," remained in

7. An excellent summary of Cassirer's thought can be found in John MichaelKrois, Cassirer: Symbolic Forms and History New Haven: Yale UP, 1987).

8. Simmel's lectures on Kant exerted a tremendous mpact upon students of Cas-

sirer's generation, ince the lectures were meant "to serve as an introduction o philosoph-ical thinking" as such. See Georg Simmel, Kant: Sechzehn Vorlesungen, ehalten an derBerliner Universitdt, rd ed. (Munich and Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1913) iii. ForSimmel's influence on Cassirer, ee David R. Lipton, Ernst Cassirer. The Dilemma of theLiberal Intellectual n Germany, 914-1933 (Toronto: U Toronto P, 1978) 3-5. On the gen-eral outline of neo-Kantianism, ee Timothy Keck, "Kant and Socialism: The MarburgSchool in Wilhelmian Germany," diss., University of Wisconsin, 1975); also KlausKahnke, Entstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianismus: ie deutsche Universitatsphilo-sophie zwischen Idealismus und Positivismus (Frankfurt/Main, 991), and Ulrich Sieg,Aufstieg und Niedergang des Marburger Neukantianismus. ie Geschichte einer philoso-phischen Schulgemeinschaft Wiirzburg: K6nigshausen & Neumann, 1994).

9. On Cassirer's Judaism, ee the thoughtful ssay by Thomas Meyer, "Ernst Cas-sirer Judentum us dem Geist der universalistischen ernunft," schkenas 10.2 (2000):459-502; also Oswald Schwemmer, Ernst Cassirer Ein Philosoph der europdischen Mod-erne (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997) and Steven S. Schwarzschild, Judaism n the Lifeand Work of Ernst Cassirer," l cannocchiale 1.1-2 (1991): 327-344.


7/43


manuscript orm and has only recently been published. Cassirer alsowrote a shorter work, entitled Language and Myth (1925), which washis first substantive contribution o the cultural history series published

bythe

Warburg Library,where he labored

uponthe PSF

throughouthe

1920s. In the midst of this work, Cassirer also wrote an historicalmonograph, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy(1927) that investigates renaissance theories of "ego and world" anddiscerns the origins of the enlightenment deal of spiritual creativity.Nevertheless, vigorous attention to political or social thought remainsnoticeably underdeveloped n Cassirer's scholarship, which, given hisadherence o enlightenment deals, might appear surprising.l0 The vari-ous essays collected in 1916 under the title, Freedom and Form, repre-sent an exception to Cassirer's largely scientific and cultural butunpolitical labors.1l Cassirer marshaled his intellectual resources onlyonce in defense of the precarious Weimar Republic.12 n 1928, he deliv-ered a famous address on "The Idea of a Republican Constitution," nwhich he attempted o prove an affinity between Kant's philosophy andpolitical democracy.13 His final work, The Myth of the State, representsCassirer's most sustained reatment f political matters, but it is also hislast statement on the broader, hilosophical ignificance ofmyth.14

10. The absence of a pronounced thical theory in Cassirer's work was first notedby Leo Strauss, n a critical review of The Myth of the State, which is reprinted n LeoStrauss, What s Political Philosophy? and Other Studies (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press,1959) 292-96. For Strauss's earlier assessment, see Leo Strauss, "Religionsphilosophie:Zur Auseinandersetzung mit der europiischen Wissenschaft," Der Jude VIII. 10 (1924):613-617. Also see Birgit Recki, "Kultur hne Moral? Warum Ernst Cassirer rotz der Ein-sicht in dem Primat der praktischen Vemrnunft eine Ethik schreiben konnte," Ernst Cassir-ers Werk nd Wirkung, Kultur und Philosophie, eds. Dorothea Frede, Reinold Schmlicker(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997) 58-78.

11. Ernst Cassirer, Freiheit und Form: Studien ur deutschen Geistesgeschichte, nded. (1916; Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1918).

12. On Cassirer's political significance, ee Lipton.13. Cassirer, Die Idee der Republikanischen Verfassung, Rede zur Verfassungsfeier

am 11. August 1928 (Hamburg: riedrichsen, e Gruyter & Co., 1929), hereafter, Die Idee.14. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Volume : Language, Volume

II: Mythical Thought, Volume II: The Phenomenology f Knowledge, rans. Ralph Man-heim (New Haven: Yale UP, 1957), hereafter PSF, followed by volume number and page.Sprache und Mythos was originally published in Studien der Bibliothek Warburg VI(1925). The English edition is Language and Myth, rans. Susanne K. Langer 1946; NewYork: Harper Dover, 1953), hereafter, LM. Ernst Cassirer, ndividuum nd Kosmos inder

Philosophieder Renaissance

1927),in

Englishas The Individual and the Cosmos in

Renaissance Philosophy, rans. Mario Domandi New York: Harper nd Row, 1963). ErnstCassirer, Die Philosophie der Aufkliarung Tiibingen: .C.B. Mohr-Paul Siebeck, 1932),in English, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, rans. Fritz C.A. Koelln and James P.Pettegrove (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1951), hereafter, PE. Recently, John MichaelKrois has edited Cassirer's ssay, "Spirit and Life," which contains an extensive responseto Heidegger, and was located in the previously unpublished manuscript or the projectedfourth volume of PSR, The Metaphysics f Symbolic Forms that was completed n 1929.


8/43


Before specifically engaging Cassirer's discussion of myth, it is help-ful to examine his more general philosophical commitments. For Cas-

sirer, human consciousness is best conceived according to a Kantianmodel, where the mind stands as "lawgiver unto nature," grantingobjectivity and order to the world it represents. According to thismodel, the subject relates to its world as its transcendental round: Weencounter a world of "order and harmony" nly because our reality hasbeen structured n advance by the formative action of reason. We do notenjoy immediate access to things; indeed, without the structuring ctionof our own mental apparatus he world in itself would be presumably

without order or sense. Kant called this structuring ction "the sponta-neity of human understanding," nd the doctrine exerted a strong influ-ence upon Cassirer n all of his philosophical and historical work. Whileit is true that his philosophy of symbolic forms moved away from the"spontaneity" hesis in significant respects, the essential view of themind as a formative agency remained unchanged.15

The immediate importance of "form" n Kantian philosophy is evi-dent in the idea that space and time are pure "forms" of intuition, but itgained a new prominence n Simmel's lectures on Kant. While still inhis 20s, Cassirer absorbed Simmel's interpretation f transcendental de-alism as a philosophy that concerned "the forms of experience" pro-jected by the mind. For Simmel, Kant had shown that the"determination f Being" is only possible through "the forms and pro-ductive powers of Spirit," a mental agency which was characteristic otonly of practical and theoretical reason, but also of aesthetic-expressivelabor as well. In Simmel's view, the "unity" exhibited in a perfectedwork of art was itself a reflection of the "form of the soul itself."l6

15. An exemplary tatement f Cassirer's method can be found n PSF: "It is one ofthe first essential insights of critical philosophy hat objects are not 'given' to conscious-ness in a rigid, finished state, in their naked 'as suchness' [ihrem nackten An-Sich], butthat the relation of representation o object presupposes an independent, pontaneous actof consciousness. The object does not exist prior o and outside of synthetic unity but isconstituted only by this synthetic unity; it is no fixed form that imprints tself on con-sciousness but is the product of a formative operation Formung] effected by the basicinstrumentality f consciousness, by intuition and pure thought. PSF takes up this basiccritical idea, this fundamental rinciple of Kant's 'Copernican evolution,' and strives tobroaden t. It seeks the categories of the consciousness of objects in the theoretical, ntel-lectual sphere, and starts rom the assumption hat such categories must be at work wher-ever a cosmos, a characteristic nd typical world view, takes form out of the chaos ofimpressions." SF II 29 (German 9).

16. Simmel, Kant 49.


9/43


While Simmel's interpretation mphasized he centrality of "form" nKantian philosophy, Simmel also noted that specifically regarding art,

Kant's concept of form remained "too narrow."l7 The combination ofSimmel's elucidation of Kantian form, and Cohen's "critical idealist"reading of Kant as a theorist of scientific discovery no doubt exerteda powerful influence upon Cassirer's own philosophy of form. But Sim-mel's critical remarks on the limitations of Kant's original project espe-cially helped move Cassirer oward a broader heory of culture.

Cassirer first introduced he idea of symbolic form in his 1921 study,Einstein ' Theory of Relativity, where he claimed that the theory of rela-

tivity demanded a "new concept [. . .] of the object," as "grounded inthe form of physical thought." Einsteinian physics "strives o determineand to express in pure objectivity merely the natural object, but therebynecessarily expresses itself, its own law and its own principle." Now,physics abandons the notion of "substance" and replaces it with anotion of "function" anchored n nothing but the symbolizing capaci-ties of human consciousness. This move, Cassirer noted, was essen-tially a restatement of the Kantian dea of the Copernican revolution,which claims that rather han conceiving of the mind as conforming oobjects, objects are best conceived in conformity o the mind. But, Cas-sirer hastened to add that this transcendental rinciple was not onlyapplicable n science; it expressed he far older notion that all religion,indeed all of human xperience, ests upon anthropomorphic oundations.

Here is revealed again that "anthropomorphism" f all our concepts ofnature o which Goethe [...] loved to point. "All philosophy of natureis still only anthropomorphism, .e., man, at unity with himself,imparts o everything hat he is not, this unity, draws t into his unity,makes it one with himself [. ..] We can observe, measure .. .] weigh,etc., nature s much as we will, it is still only our measure nd weight,as man s the measure f all things."'8

From the critique of religion to modern science, the principle of"anthropomorphism" as "not to be understood n a limited way but ina universal, critical and transcendental ense."19 Cassirer laimed hat the

17. Simmel, Kant 180.18. Zur Einstein schen Relitivitatstheorie, riginally published n 1921; in English

as Substance and Function and Einstein " Theory f Relativity, rans. William Swabey andMarie Swabey (Chicago: Open Court, 1923) 445, hereafter, ETR.

19. ETR 445.


10/43


Kantian principle could now be applied to the investigation of all of human

experience. His global ambitions are clear in the passage below, which is

generally accepted as Cassirer's first use of the term "symbolic form."

It is the task of systematic philosophy, which extends far beyond thetheory of knowledge, [. . .] to grasp the whole system of symbolicforms, the application of which produces or us the concept of anordered reality, and by virtue of which subject and object, ego andworld are separated nd opposed o each other n definite form, and itmust refer each individual n this totality o its fixed place. If we assumethis problem solved, then the rights would be assured, and the limitsfixed, of each of the particular ...] as of the general orms of the theo-retical, ethical, aesthetic, and religious understanding f the world.20

According to Cassirer, all of human culture, indeed the very sense ofthere being a "world" as distinct from an "ego," is consequent uponwhat Cassirer named the spontaneous "application" f form by a tran-scendental subject. And it is this form that "produces for us" the very"concept of an ordered reality."

It is worth noting that this definition considerably expands upon

Kant's original model of mental spontaneity. Kant never suggested thatthe formative function might extend further than the basic, a prioriapplication of space, time, and the categories. Cassirer closely followedKant's idea that our world is the result of the transcendental conscious-ness "producing" an "ordered reality." However, he broadened the princi-ple by claiming that symbolic forms govern the entire landscape of humanexpression. In his work throughout the 1920s, Cassirer set out to showhow a Kantian investigation of transcendental consciousness might beapplied to broad areas of "symbolizing" activity from language to myth.He laid out the basic presuppositions for the project in a programmaticessay from 1922, "The Concept of Symbolic Form in the Construction ofthe Human Sciences" [Der Begriffder Symbolischen Form im Aufbau derGeisteswissenschaften]. Cassirer offered it as his inaugural publication forthe Warburg Library, where he carried out research for much of thedecade. The essay contains an important redefinition of symbolic form:

By "symbolic form" [is meant] that energy of the spirit [Energie des

Geistes] through which a mental meaning-content s attached o a sen-sual sign and inwardly dedicated o this sign [. . .] [L]anguage, he

20. ETR 47, my emphasis.


11/43


mythical-religious orld, nd he arts ach present s with a particularsymbolic orm. I]n hem all we see the mark f the basic phenome-

non,that our consciousness

[BewufJ3tsein]s not satisfied o

receiveimpression [Eindruck] rom outside, but rather . . .] permeates eachimpression with afree activity of expression mit einerfreien Titigkeitdes Ausdrucks]. n what we call the objective eality f things we arethus confronted with a world ofself-created signs and images."21

Here, Cassirer characterizes ymbolic forms as products of "free" men-tal energy and expression. Such forms are "self-created" nd thereforeannounce, against empiricism, hat a spontaneity of the spirit pervadesall cultural ife, most notably in science, but - and this proved just asimportant in language, art, and myth.

Cassirer on Language and MythThe second volume of PSF focuses specifically on mythical thought.

Here the spontaneity hesis is put on bold display. Cassirer presupposedthat myth can only be understood s the most primitive stratum of sym-bolic consciousness, and therefore hat myth is grasped as an "expres-sion" of spirit. He sharply differentiated this effort from anyinvestigation nto myth's origins or instrumentality. To seek a 'form' ofmythical consciousness," he wrote, "means to inquire neither after itsultimate metaphysical causes nor after its psychological, historical orsocial causes: it is solely to seek the unity of the spiritual principle bywhich all its particular configurations, with all their vast empiricaldiversity, appear o be governed."22 With a nod toward Husserlian phe-nomenology, Cassirer nsisted that his method is merely "critical phe-nomenology" since it separated ts phenomenological nalysis from any

discussion about the genesis or use of mythological systems. Itaddresses "neither rom the godhead an original metaphysical act norfrom mankind as an original empirical fact" but instead theorizes "thesubject of a cultural process" [das Subjekt des Kulturprozesses]. t pre-sents a narrative of the "human pirit" n its "pure actuality and diverseconfigurations," n order o apprehend ts own "immanent orms."23

Cassirer's analysis of mythological consciousness follows the Kantianprinciple that consciousness must obey its own, interior principles of

21. Ernst Cassirer, Der Begriffder Symbolischen orm m Aufbau der Geisteswissen-schaften," ibliothek Warburg, ortrage, 921/22 Leipzig: B.G Teubner, 923) 11-39, 15.

22. PSF, II 12.23. PSF, II 19; English 13.


12/43


expression: Culture is ideally the work of autonomous spirit. Cassirerdeparted rom Kant, however, n his portrait f consciousness as follow-

ing a logic of immanent development. f one could demonstrate hatmyth is part of a "cultural process," hen the Kantian principle of men-tal spontaneity must be fundamentally istoricized. Here Cassirer's he-ory adopts a Hegelian view of mythical "activities" s a primitive stagein the unfolding narrative f spirit:

It is only in these activities s a whole that humankind onstitutesitself n accordance ith ts ideal oncept ndconcrete istorical xist-ence; t is only in these activities s a whole hat s effected hat pro-gressive differentiation f "subject" nd "object," I" and "world,"through hich consciousness ssues rom ts stupor, rom ts captivityin mere existence [aus der Befangenheit m blofien Dasein], in sensoryimpression nd affectivity, nd becomes a cultural onsciousness[Kulturbewufl3tsein].24

The developmental hesis, however, mplies that myth can not be under-stood as a perfect or complete expression of human consciousness. Ifmyth is merely a "stage" in the "objectification" Objektivierung] f

spirit, it is difficult to avoid the judgment that myth is nothing but animperfect and occluded mode of representation. With he first dawn ofscientific insight," Cassirer observed, "the mythical world of dream andenchantment eems to sink into nothingness" die Traum- und Zauber-welt des Mythos [. . .] scheint sie wie ins Nichts hinabgesunken u sein].But questions concerning he accuracy or truth of their representationalcontent of myth are not significant for Cassirer, since he is interestedsolely in their manner of objectification. Here Cassirer can affirm thatmyth is indeed "objective" n so far as it discloses "an immanent rule,"and "a characteristic "necessity."25 Moreover, t is misleading to sug-gest that myth yields entirely to scientific modes of representation."[E]ven the world of our immediate experience that world in whichall of us constantly ive and are when not engaged in conscious, critical-scientific reflection - contains any number of traits which, form thestandpoint f the same reflection, can only be designated as mythical."26

Cassirer was not alone in proposing such a "pan-mythic" heory ofeveryday belief. He drew inspiration rom Wilhelm Wundt's monumen-tal study, Volkerpsychologie, published n ten volumes between 1900

24. PSF, I1 19; English 13, translation modified.25. PSI II 19; English 14, translation modified.26. PSF II 20; English 14.


13/43


and 1920), which lays out a comprehensive et of "developmental aws"guiding language, myth, and custom.27 But it is perhaps most instruc-

tive to compare Cassirer's work to contemporary heories in anthropol-ogy, which were breaking rom the older, linear-progressivist model ofmyth as merely imaginative epresentation, nd turning nstead oward aview of myth as the "constitutive" ramework f culture as such.

Consider Bronislaw Malinowski's so-called "functionalism." Mali-nowski follows Durkheim's claim in The Elementary Forms of Reli-gious Life (1912) that "all religion is true," and Lucien L~vy-Bruhl'sholistic theory of myth in La Mentalitd rimitive (1922), and he argues

in Myth in Primitive Psychology (1926) that myth is "not merely a storytold but a reality lived [. . .] As our sacred story lives in our ritual, inour morality, as it governs our faith and controls our conduct, even sodoes myth or the savage." Myth is not merely "primitive," ut rather "avital ingredient n human civilization." Malinowski's great advance ishis suggestion that myth - like Durkheim's religion - provides thebasic framework or human action. It is a "narrative esurrection of aprimeval reality." Most importantly, myth lays down the conditions forintelligibility n all human conduct, without which life succumbs o "themost formidable and haunting idea" of mortality. Mythic structuresserve as a bulwark against meaninglessness. "They would screen, withthe vivid texture of their myths, stories, and beliefs about the spiritworld, the vast emotional void gaping beyond them." Myth is for Mali-nowski not only the "backbone of primitive culture," but in fact "anindispensable ngredient f all culture" my emphasis).28

The functionalist and panmythic perspective in early sociologicaland anthropological theory bears upon some of Cassirer's central

27. Wilhelm Wundt, Volkerpsychologie: ine Untersuchung der Entwicklungs-gesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte, 10 volumes (Vols. 1-5, Leipzig: W. Engelmann,1900-1920; Vols. 5-10, Leipzig: A. Kriner, 1920).

28. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary orms of Religious Life (1912; Glencoe: FreePress, 1963). Lucien L6vy-Bruhl, a Mentalitd rimitive Paris: Librairie elix Alcan, 1922).Bronislaw Malinowski, Myth in Primitive Psychology (New York: W.W. Norton, 1926);republished n the collection, Malinowski nd the Work fMyth, ed. Ivan Strenski Princeton,NJ: Princeton UP, 1992) 77-116. On the theme of death, see esp. 108: "Death ...] is notvague, or abstract, r difficult o grasp . .] [it] is fraught with horror, with a desire o removeits threat, with the vague hope that t may be, not explained, ut rather xplained way, made

unreal, and actually denied." See also Malinowski s quoted n Cassirer, Judaism nd theModem Political Myths," Contemporary ewish Record 7 (1944): 115-126, reprinted n Cas-sirer, Symbol, Myth, and Culture. Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer, 1935-1945, ed.Donald Phillip Verene New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1979) 233-241, 237. All quotes in thisparagraph re from Malinowski 7-106, nter alia.


14/43


philosophical themes. On the one hand, their generous view of mythanticipated and inspired he later, universalist tructuralist iew of myth,

especially that articulated n Levi-Strauss's 1962 La Pensde sauvage. Atthe same time, the generalized heory of myth threatened o destabilizethe objectivist relation between theorist and myth. If myth, like a prag-matist's framework, was "good for thinking," as Levi-Strauss proposed,this raised the question of how the explanatory methods of anthropologi-cal science differentiate hemselves from the mythical objects it studied.If myth were truly universal, hen the diachronic model of secularizingconsciousness - from "myth" to "science" - must itself fall victim to

anthropological escription,a conclusion that

promptedLevi-Strauss o

announce, against Sartre, hat historical progressivism s itself a myth.29Cassirer went as far as possible to endorse the generalized pragmatist

theory of myth, but he could not surrender he diachronic heory of pro-gressive enlightenment hat justified his own stance as a philosopher.On the one hand, he took great pains to demonstrate hat myth is anobjectification of spirit and therefore anchored n human rationality. Asthe neo-Kantian critic Kurt Sternberg observed in a brief review, Cas-sirer's method expands upon Marburg methods to embrace not only thelogic of theoretical reason but also the "logic of the unlogical."30 How-ever, mythical consciousness, unlike "truly religious" consciousness, isincapable of distinguishing between its own symbolism and the world itsymbolizes. "Every beginning of myth," Cassirer observed, "is perme-ated by this belief in the objective character and objective force of thesign." Language begins on the same plane, as a symbolic order perme-ated by a mythical belief in the identity between word and thing. But aslanguage develops, the primal bond gives way to a new and higher

"stage of detachment." Finally, with the modern understanding f art,"spirit" achieves a "truly free" relation with its surroundings. "Mea-sured by empirical, realistic criteria, the aesthetic world becomes aworld of appearance; but in severing its bond with immediate reality,with the material existence and efficacy which constitute the world ofmagic and myth, [art] embodies a new step toward the truth." Despitehis generous view of myth as an "objectification" f spirit, Cassirer

29. Claude L6vi-Strauss, La Pensde Sauvage (Paris: Plon, 1962). For an accessible

summation f L6vi-Strauss's iews, see his Myth and Meaning: Cracking he Code ofCul-ture (Toronto: U Toronto P, 1978).

30. Kurt Sternberg, Cassirer, Ernst. Prof. an der Universittit Hamburg. Die Begriff-sform m mythischen Denken," Kantstudien, Band 20 (1925): 194-195, 194, my emphasis.


15/43


nonetheless retained an unmistakably volutionist bias:

Thus, although myth, anguage, nd art nterpenetrate ne another ntheir concrete historical manifestations, he relation between hemreveals a definite ystematic radation, n ideal progression owardpoint where he spirit otonly s and ives n its own creations, ts self-created ymbols, utalso knows hem or what hey are. Or, as Hegelset out to show in his Phenomenology f Spirit: the aim of spiritualdevelopment s that cultural eality eapprehended ndexpressed otmerely s substance ut"equally s subject."

For Cassirer his difference remained decisive. While granting hat mythis a spontaneous expression of human consciousness, he still insistedthat myth differs crucially from the disenchanted modes of expression- from both science and art. Whereas he mythical mind cannot recog-nize the world as its own thoroughly human creation, he secular mind"knows that the symbols it employs are symbols and comprehends hemas such."31 This teleological premise, that assumes enlightened self-transparency s the natural ndpoint of human development, emained afundamental commitment in Cassirer's philosophy throughout his

career. t is crucial or Cassirer's diagnosis of fascism, as I will explain.Before examining that diagnosis, Cassirer's nvestigations of mythicconsciousness must be considered more closely. In the same year as thepublication of PSF II: Mythical Thought, Cassirer also published ashorter essay on Language and Myth (1925). As a sort of transitionalstudy in PSF - between the first volume on language and the secondvolume on myth - it focuses on the original bond between these twomodes of symbolization. ndeed, Cassirer akes pains to show that lin-guistic-theoretical expression is itself born from mythical conscious-ness. "Theoretical, practical, and aesthetic consciousness, the world oflanguage and of morality, he basic forms of community and the state,"all of these, he claims, are "originally ied up with mythico-religiousconceptions." The mythic world is, in Cassirer's view, a sort of primalunity, which only broke apart into discrete spheres of expressive con-sciousness over the course of the advancement civilization. Certainly,Cassirer remained wedded to the view that spontaneity s an intrinsicfeature of human consciousness whatever ts developmental tage. But,

he hastened o note, because mythical consciousness does not recognize31. The same point is repeated forcefully in the closing passage of Cassirer's

shorter, ransitional tudy from 1925, Language and Myth, esp. 98-99.


16/43


its role in the creation of mythic phenomena, t ascribes autonomousand non-human uthority o its own linguistic creations.

The single most dramatic piece of evidence for the mythical, non-human conception of language n primitive cultures, Cassirer claimed, isthe Melanesian category of "mana," which a variety of anthropologistshad subjected to intense theoretical scrutiny during the precedingdecades.32 Though its definition is much disputed among scholars,mana seems to denote "supernatural ower" which, in Cassirer'sdescription, "permeates ll things and events, and may be present nowin objects, now in persons, yet is never bound exclusively to any single

and individual subject or object as its host." It is less an objective ea-ture of things than it is a medium o identify elements of the world thatevoke mythic "wonder" and seem to "stand forth from the ordinarybackground of familiar, mundane existence."33 Mana is further proofthat myth does not merely consist of a set of discrete agencies or localgods, but is, in fact, best understood as a primitive means for organiz-ing experience. "[T]he whole existence of things," Cassirer writes, "andthe activity of mankind seem to be embedded, so to speak, in a mythi-cal 'field of force,' an atmosphere of potency which permeates every-thing." Mana, like language, was to be catalogued among those"spiritual unctions which do not take their departure rom a world ofgiven objects, divided according to fixed and finished attributes, butwhich actually first produce this organization f reality and make thepositing of attributes ossible." As Cassirer notes approvingly, he Frenchanthropologists Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss go so far as to declaremana "a fundamental category of mythical hinking."34 nd in his later,English-language ummation, An Essay on Man, Cassirer herefore alled

mana "the irst, or existential, dimension f the supernatural."35The strongest evidence for this "mythic" understanding f language

can be found in ancient cosmogony which once featured he "Word" sthe privileged medium of creation. The native practice of word-magicfunctions by identifying word and object. It is predicated on an "essen-tial identity between the word and what it denotes." But if the thing andits name are regarded as a primal unity, it suffices for something to be

32. For a short ist of exemplary cholarship n mana, see Cassirer, PSE II 76, n. 2.33. LM66.34. Henri Hubert nd Marcel Mauss, "Esquisse d'une thdorie g6n6rale de la magie,"

Ann&e ociologique 7 (1902-03): 1-146, my emphasis.35. EM99-100.


17/43


named in order for it to be brought orth magically into existence. Morespecifically, word-magic conceives of the human subject itself as utterly

interwoven with the linguistic fabric of things. In mythic thinking, Cas-sirer writes, "even a person's ego, his very self and personality, s indis-solubly linked [. . .] with his name." The "unity and uniqueness" of thename serves not only to designate the person, but actually "constitutesit; the name is what first makes man an individual."36

The logical affinity between language and myth, however, is notmerely a feature of primitive thought. In a brief and uncharacteristicmoment, Cassirer admits that the modem subject depends upon the spe-

cial, constitutive function of language in the formation of everydayexperience. In science, of course, it is possible to supplant a great dealof organic language with the more artificial language of mathematicalsymbolization. But for everyday personal and interpersonal elations,organic language remains indispensable, not only as a means of com-munication but as the constitutive medium of meaning tself.

Indeed, t is the Word, t is language, hat really reveals o man hatworld which s closer o him than any world of natural bjects and

touches him] more directly han physical nature. or t is languagethat makes his existence n a community ossible; ndonly n society,in relation o a "Thou," an his subjectivity ssert tself as a "Me." Buthere again the creative act while it is in progress, is not recognized assuch; all the energy of that spiritual achievement s projected nto theresult f it, and seems bound p in that object rom which t seems oemanate as by reflection.37

From this comment, one might discern an element of hesitation n Cas-sirer's thinking. The original bond between mythic and linguistic modesof symbolization never vanished entirely. Language, "while it is inprogress," appears as a force independent of its user. To be sure, secu-lar consciousness lost the illusion of non-human existence in mythicimagery. Further, cientific explanation ought to dispense with all butthe most artificial systems of symbolization. But if myth is disen-chanted and has consequently forfeited its power of social cohesion,language still preserves omething of the same quasi-mythic pacity.

Language, hen, even "secular" anguage, might bear persistent races of

mythic elements, n so far as language and myth constitute ndividual and

36. LM49-51.37. LM61. Cassirer mphasizes "community," he other emphasis s mine.


18/43


social identity. Ordinary xperience might preserve he sense of passivitythat originally belonged o the mythic conception of language. f, so, then

Cassirer would admit a non-spontaneous haracter n all meaning-struc-tures, mythic and secular alike. But whether Cassirer eally meant that anelement of mythic receptivity emains n the secular conception of realitymight be disputed. In any event, the qualification poses no significantproblem or his theory more generally. Even without his prerequisite, t isinstructive to compare Cassirer's model of mythical consciousness toHeidegger's analysis, since Heidegger admits no transformation hatso-ever in the basic structures f meaning. ndeed, he passivity hat belongs

to Cassirer's chief characteristics f the mythic conception of languageclosely resembles he "thrownness" hat Heidegger onsiders a basic char-acteristic of all human meaning, as summarized n his statement hat it isnot man, but instead "it is language hat speaks."38

It is important o emphasize that Cassirer's overall theory of secular-ization introduced a crucial distinction into the comparison of mythicand modern consciousness. Whereas mythic thought remains confinedto the illusion of receptivity, modem consciousness can, at any moment,free itself from the language-like exture of its surroundings o recog-nize its own agency. Cassirer oncluded hat

we are faced with a characteristic f mythic hinkingwhich divides tsharply rom he way of"discursive" r theoretical, eflection. he at-ter is characterized y the fact that even in apparently mmediately"given" data t recognizes an element of mental creation ...] Even inmatters of fact it reveals an aspect of mental formulation; ven insheer sense data it traces the influence of a "spontaneity f thought"that goes to their making. But while logical reflection ends [ . .] to

resolve all receptivity into spontaneity, mythic conception showsexactly the opposite tendency, namely, to regard all spontaneousaction as something receptive, and all human achievement as some-thing merely bestowed.'9

For Cassirer, he difference between "mythical" nd modern, "theoreti-cal" thought remained decisive. Whereas myth regards meaning assomething "bestowed" nd does not recognize the primitive evidence ofits own mental activity in mythic forms, theoretical reflection emerges

38. Martin Heidegger, ...PoeticallyMan Dwells...," oetry, Language, Thought,trans. Albert Hofstadter San Francisco: arper ndRow, 1971)211-229; 16.

39. LM60, my emphasis.


19/43


from the self-negating "dialectic of mythical consciousness," and passesthrough he higher and more self-consciously symbolizing stage of reli-

gion, to reach at last the apogee of development where human con-sciousness sees worldly experience even experiences of mere fact -as governed by its own mental principles. This essentially Kantianinsight into the "spontaneity f thought" s only possible for a subjectwho has achieved the self-transparency nd demythologized understand-ing characteristic f secular modemrnity.40 n its final stages, the symbol-izing function "leaves [. . .] behind" both myth and religion, and rises toa mode of "aesthetic consciousness" n which the imagistic expressions

of mind relinquish any claim to non-subjective "reality." n art, thefruits of symbolizing consciousness

confess hemselves o be illusion s opposed o the empirical eality fthings; but his llusion has its own truth ecause t possesses ts ownlaw. In the return o this aw there arises a new freedom f conscious-ness: the image no longer reacts upon he spirit as an independentmaterial hing but becomes for the spirit a pure expression of its owncreative power.41

In sum, Cassirer's philosophy rested upon a teleological premise thattakes the enlightenment ubject as the necessary goal of human devel-opment. Moreover, t provides an unapologetic defense of secularism asthe precondition or any truly philosophical account of myth: Becauseonly secular consciousness can recognize the "spiritual necessity" fromwhich myth is derived, it follows that only secular consciousness canpossibly possess the requisite instruments o subject mythological sys-tems to genuinely philosophical understanding.42 t is worth noting that

Cassirer's commitment o the Kantian conception of a transcendentalself marks the decisive difference between his theory of myth and thatof Levi-Strauss, which Paul Ricoeur aptly summarizes, n a phrase citedapprovingly by the author, as "Kantism without a transcendental ub-

ject.'"43 The danger attendant with this view is that the anthropologicaldescription s robbed of its non-mythic tatus, an implication which Levi-Strauss embraced n the introductory emarks o The Raw and the Cooked

40. See esp. PSF II, Part V, "The Dialectic of Mythical Consciousnes" 35-61.

41. PSF II 261, my emphasis.42. PSE II, English 21.43. Paul Ricoeur, "Symbole et temporaliti," Archivo di Filosofia 1-2 (1963): 24;

quoted n L6vi-Strauss, heRaw and he Cooked, ntroduction oa Science f Mythology,trans. John and Doreen Weightman New York: Octagon Books, 1979) 11, originally LeCru et le Cuit (Paris: Plon, 1964).


20/43


(1964) and he affirmed hat his own reconstructions ere themselves aspecies of myth. While this generalized nd fully synchronic heory risks

collapsing the distinction between science and mythology, Cassirer's his-toricized model of Kantian pontaneity wards off the specter of anthropo-logical relativism and in so doing, equips him with a preemptivejustification or his own analysis.44 t was precisely Cassirer's assumptionof a "secular" r transcendental onsciousness hat Heidegger disputed.

Cassirer and Heidegger on Myth and SubjectivityFor more than twenty years, Cassirer and Heidegger engaged in an

uneasyand often

interrupted philosophical discussion that revolvedchiefly around the question of myth. The debate began in 1923 whenthe two philosophers exchanged houghts during a local "Kant society"meeting in Hamburg. n Being and Time, Heidegger acknowledged Cas-sirer for having "recently made the Dasein of myth a theme for philo-sophical interpretation," and the following year he published anextended review of Cassirer's myth-philosophy as presented in PSF,Volume II. Their most extensive discussion occurred n the spring of1929, when they met publicly at Davos, Switzerland or a dramatic dis-putation concerning the broader aims of Kantian philosophy. Onceagain, the conversation hinged on contrasting models of human subjec-tivity, and Heidegger energetically disputed the Kantian premises ofCassirer's ideal of freedom. There is some evidence, albeit uncertain,that Heidegger might have behaved toward Cassirer with noticeableaggression.45 t is certain, however, that relations between them souredshortly thereafter. Cassirer's 1932 review of Heidegger's book, Kantand the Problem of Metaphysics, in Kantstudien, expanded on and

sharpened he criticism of Heidegger's work he made public three years44. This doctrine of secularization s a self-justifying description of philosophical

practice s repeated most forcefully n the introductory omments o volume three, whichis devoted to the logic of scientific explanation. "For he concept of philosophy attains tsfull power and purity only where the world view expressed n linguistic and mythical con-cepts is abandoned, where it is in principle overcome. The logic of philosophy irst consti-tutes itself by this very act of transcendence. o achieve its own maturity, hilosophy mustabove all come to grips with the linguistic and mythical worlds and place itself in dialecticopposition to them. Only in this way can it define and assert is concepts of essence andtruth." PSF, III 16.

45. According to Hendrik J. Pos, Heidegger did not shake Cassirer's hand, see,"Recollections of Ernst Cassirer," The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, ed. Paul ArthurSchlipp, Vol. 6, The Library of the Living Philosophers La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1949)61-72, 69.


21/43


earlier. More recently, a little-known manuscript rom 1929 entitled"Spirit and Life" has come to light that Cassirer had meant to include in

a projected fourth volume of PSF. In it he accuses Heidegger of aban-doning philosophical objectivity and falling into a religiously-tingedsolipsism. Even more dramatic are the closing pages of The Myth of theState, where Cassirer condemns Heidegger for having endorsed "mod-ern political myths."46

In order to understand he stakes of this dispute, one must considerHeidegger's remarks on mythic consciousness n Being and Time. It isalso helpful to recall that the book's broader aim was to lay out a phe-

nomenological description of the basic structure of human understand-ing. Moreover, he insists from the outset that human understanding nlyshows itself in the unfolding process of existence itself. There is, inother words, no core "essence" of human being besides that which takesshape in the course of living one's life and interpretatively evelopingone's identity along the way. "Dasein's 'essence,'" Heidegger claimed,"just is and is nothing other than its existence." First and most trivially,this means that understanding he world is something hat occurs wholly"in-the-world." Heidegger, like Kant and Cassirer following him,showed little patience for extramundane peculation. More importantly,this implies that the basic structures of human understanding aregrounded n everyday life. There is no special "spirit" or "transcenden-tal self," Heidegger claimed, that lies somewhere beneath the worldlyself as its logical support. There is, however, a "logic" to existenceitself, in that one's interpretative ctivity in the world exhibits certainmodes of understanding hat admit of formal description. n Being andTime Heidegger strove to differentiate hose modes through what he

called an "existential nalytic."This so-called existential analytic was clearly offered as a corrective

to what Kant had called the "transcendental" nalytic in the Critique ofPure Reason. An important difference s Heidegger's belief that humanunderstanding oes not enjoy "transcendental" restige, as it does not restupon a foundation ther han its own temporal xistence, or Dasein. Thisbelief sets Heidegger at odds with Cassirer, whose entire philosophy, asshown above, rests upon the presupposition hat human understanding

exhibits an unmistakable moment of "spontaneity." Heidegger rejectedany philosophy that sought to isolate principles of mental spontaneity

46. MS 355.


22/43


within the structure of human understanding. Rather than beginningwith any so-called "transcendental" ogic and analyzing reason in

abstraction from practice, Heidegger claims that the basic rules ofhuman meaning are best discerned by concentrating upon the way ourinterpretative ctivity actually works in medias res. Thus he rejects anyattempt to isolate rules of meaning from existence, specifically, themethod of epoch&, or "bracketing" hat is the hallmark of Husserl's"transcendental henomenology." nstead, he concentrates his analysison that always-situated sort of interpretative practice which Husserlidentifies with "the natural conception of the world."47 n Heidegger's

own terminology, the task is to explicate the meaning-structure fhuman existence in its "everydayness" Alltaglichkeit].48Heidegger's interest in myth and "primitive" consciousness arose

directly from his methodological focus on everydayness. In the finalsection of the expository chapter of Being and Time, Heideggerannounces "the task of a preparatory nalysis of Dasein," and warnsreaders not to mistake the philosophical engagement of everydaynessfor a sophisticated ejection of modernity: "Everydayness oes not coin-cide with primitiveness," he explains, and it must be considered a con-stant modality of Dasein's being, "even when that Dasein is active in ahighly developed and differentiated culture.'"49 eidegger is stronglyopposed to nostalgic attempts o locate the more "genuine" aspects ofhuman life in what is merely "some primitive stage of Dasein withwhich we can become acquainted empirically through the medium ofanthropology." With "everydayness" e wishes only to draw philosophi-cal attention o the fact that human interpretative ctivities are, for themost part, lived in the manner of absorbed and non-discursive concern.

Everydayness s a modality for all human understanding, nd, amongother things, this implied that primitive Dasein exhibits everydayness noless and no more than does any sort of "developed" ulture. Heideggerwas therefore wary of anthropological tudies, which tended in his viewto rely upon a naively empiricist technique for gathering information

47. Indeed, Husserl suggested hat working out a logic of the natural onception ofthe world was a crucial ask for phenomenology. ee Ideas, I. General ntroduction o PurePhenomenology, rans. W.R. Boyce Gibson New York: Macmillan, 1931), esp. 101-103.

48. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 11th ed.(Ttibingen:

Max Niemeyer, 1967),hereafter, Z. Translations rom Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, rans. John Macquar-rie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), hereafter, BT. Quotationfrom SZ s 9, 67-71, esp. 70, translation modified.

49. SZ s 11, 76-77, 76, original emphasis.


23/43


about native systems of meaning. "Ethnology itself," he warned,"already presupposes as its clue an inadequate analytic of Dasein."50

Despite this warning, Heidegger's existential analysis of myth closelyresembled that of Malinowski's functionalism, according to which mythserves a universal human purpose: to render livable that sense of "over-whelming foreboding, behind which, even for the native, there lurks theidea of an inevitable and ruthless fatality."51 What Malinowski calledthe "pragmatic charter of primitive belief," and the "backbone" of com-munity, Heidegger now identified as the "background" o the lived-prag-matic world.52 Like Durkheim and Malinowski, Heidegger sees that acertain

methodological advantage can be derived from fixing one'sattention on the "life of primitive peoples," because:

'primitive phenomena' are often less concealed and less complicatedby extensive self-interpretation n the part of the Dasein in question.Primitive Dasein often speaks o us more directly n terms ofa primor-dial absorption n 'phenomena' [. . .] A way of conceiving thingswhich seems, perhaps, rather clumsy and crude from our standpoint[therefore], can be positively helpful in bringing out the ontologicalstructures f phenomena n a genuine way.53

Although Heidegger sees human culture as the ongoing work of self-interpretation, he suggests that there might be an added benefit inattending more specifically to primitive cultures, in which the basic out-lines of "everydayness" remain most vivid.54 As evidence of how phi-losophers can learn from the study of primitive culture, Heideggerspecifically cites Cassirer's PSF II: Mythical Thought, which contains"clues of far-reaching importance." However, he already registers

50. SZ 5 1; BT 76.51. Malinowski, "Myth n Primitive Psychology" 108.52. Malinowski, "Myth n Primitive Psychology" 82.53. SZ51;BT 76.54. It is worth noting that Heidegger's attraction o primitive systems of meaning

that are "less concealed" n their ontological structure esembles Malinowski's arguments,and also those put forth by Emile Durkheim n his classic study, The Elementary Forms ofReligious Life (1912). For Durkheim, "all religion is true," and all cultures express somevariant of religion, just as Heidegger finds "everydayness" n all culture. More impor-tantly, both Heidegger and Durkheim believe that the focus on "primitive" elief is mostuseful methodologically, hat t discloses the structure f human meaning n "simpler" ndmore vivid fashion. Primitive religion, he argues, s "crude and rudimentary," nd not yet"elaborated" o the point of obscuring heir deeper structure. ee Durkheim, The Elemen-tary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Karen Fields (New York: The Free Press, 1995) 7.


24/43


doubts concerning Cassirer's transcendental presuppositions. "[I]tremains an open question," he writes, "whether he foundations of this

Interpretation re sufficiently ransparent whether [...] the architec-tonics and [. . .] systematic content of Kant's Critique of Pure Reasoncan provide a possible design for such a task, or whether a new andmore primordial pproach may not here be needed."55

If Heidegger did not make sufficiently clear what he found unsatisfac-tory, the broader drift of his remarks is evident. Cassirer's study ofmyth presupposes a Kantian model of subjectivity and it regards myththrough the distorting lens of transcendental consciousness. But,

Heidegger argues, if mythological study is to have any bearing on thephilosophical analysis of everydayness, t must be anchored n a verydifferent model of the subject. Heidegger's focus on the practical andsituated quality of "everyday" meaning offers a superior model ofhuman Dasein precisely because it avoids any reference o a "conscious-ness" that is split off from its interpretative ctivity. But then a "new"and "more primordial" method is needed. For such a task, Heideggersuggests, only phenomenology will do. To strengthen his case by com-parison, he observes, rather disingenuously, hat Cassirer himself con-cedes the usefulness of a phenomenological approach in PSF II.Moreover, he notes that, in his 1923 conversation with Cassirer n Ham-burg, "we had agreed n demanding n existential analytic."56

Heidegger's doubts regarding he validity of transcendental ubjectiv-ity when applied to myth was most explicit in his lengthy criticism ofCassirer's PSE II that he published n 1928.57 Now there was no mis-taking his criticism. "The neo-Kantian orientation o the problem ofconsciousness," wrote Heidegger, "is so disadvantageous, hat it [. . .]hinders a firm footing in the center of the problem."58 The difficultywas that Cassirer already assumed the "ontological constitution" f thesubject prior to his investigation, while "a radical ontology of Dasein in

55. BT 290, n. xi.56. SZ Div. I, Ch. 1, n. xi.57. Martin Heidegger, "Ernst Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. 2.

Teil: Das mythische Denken. Berlin 1925" (Review). Originally, Deutsche Literaturzei-tung, N.F. 5, Heft 21 (1928): 1000-1012. Reprinted s Appendix II in Kant und der Prob-lem der Metaphysik, 5th ed. (Frankfurt/Main: ittorio Klostermann, 1991) 255-270; inEnglish as "Review of Mythic Thought," The Piety of Thinking: Essays by Martin Heideg-ger, trans. James Hart and John Maraldo Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1976) 32-45,hereafter, MH: Review ofPSFII.

58. MH: Review of PSFII 42.


25/43


the light of the problem of Being in general" was required. The analy-sis of mana, for example, seemed to highlight the fact that mythic

human existence does not conceive of its meaning-systems as mere"representations" that are simply "present" [vorhanden] to a conscious-ness. Mana, in particular, was a powerful illustration of the fact that, for"mythic Dasein," the meaningfulness of the world could not be por-trayed as born from the sovereign capacities of an expressive subject.

Which is the mode of being of mythic "life" which enables the mana-representation o function as the guiding [. . .] understanding ofBeing? The possible answer o this question of course presupposes a

previous working out of the basic ontological constitution of Dasein.If this basic constitution s to be found n "care," .. .] then it becomesclear that mythic Dasein is primarily determined by "thrownness"[Geworfenheit].59

For Heidegger, mana indicates a mode of meaning not subject to humancontrol. Therefore, it is presumptuous for Cassirer to describe manafrom the point of view of a specifically "modern" and enlightenmentconsciousness, as if it is obvious that mythic thinking expresses the dis-

engagement and "presence" characteristic of a Kantian subject. "In'thrownness,'" Heidegger concludes, "mythic Dasein, in its manner ofbeing-in-the-world, is delivered up to the world in such a way that it isoverwhelmed by that to which it is delivered up."60

The difference is dramatic. For Heidegger, the analysis of mythicmeaning can only succeed if it presupposes a subject characterized by"thrownness" and not "spontaneity" as its methodological point ofdeparture. This implies that one should not presume a subject that issplit from the "objects" t represents n the ontological evel. The senseof being "overwhelmed" by representations is not, as Cassirer supposed,merely an illusion inflicted upon a primitive consciousness that lacksrational insight into its own powers of creation. Instead, it is an experi-ence of all human existence in its "everyday" mode. Cassirer assumes as"a basic rule which governs all development" hat "spirit achieves trueand complete inwardness only in expressing itself."61 But even thismodel of expression points away from the Kantian model of subjectivityas sovereign and toward a model of subjecthood as dependent. To

59. MH: Review ofPSFII 43.60. MH: Review of PSFII 43.61. MH: Review of PSFII44; citing German f PSFII 242; and English PSFII 196.


26/43


emphasize this point, Heidegger poses a purely rhetorical question:"What s the ontological constitution of human Dasein which accounts

for the fact that it, as it were, comes to its proper self only by way of adetour hrough he world?"62

As this abbreviated ummary may suggest, the disagreement betweenCassirer and Heidegger concerning the appropriate ubject-model forthe study of myth was not an isolated affair. It was rooted in morebasic, ontological assumptions regarding he constitution of language,meaning, and the self. As noted above, Cassirer regarded he primitiveunderstanding f myth as essentially a misunderstanding, ince he took

it as a given that all myth and language are the projections of sovereignhuman consciousness. Because only the modern subject could recog-nize culture as the effects of its own creative agency, the only properanalysis of myth was that performed by the modemrn, ecular mind.63Heidegger, by contrast, wished to address myth on its own terms, whichmeant that he saw the experience of dependency as something inelim-inable from phenomenological description. He also supposed that mythpromises a "more direct" or simplified illustration of how "everyday-ness" functions more generally. He concluded hat the mythical sense ofdependency - myth as thrownness - could afford philosophy a crucialglimpse into the ontological constitution f human existence as such.64

62. MH: Review of PSFII 45. The Heideggerian erspective mplies that myth is astructure without ranscendental nchor, nd without a "center" r point of naturalistic on-tact with the real - a view that closely anticipates acques Derrida's riticism of ClaudeLdvi-Strauss's iews in his address, Structure, ign, and Play in the Discourse of the HumanSciences," first published n Derrida, L'dcriture t la

dfference(Paris: Editions du Seuil,

1967); n English as Writing ndDifference, rans. Alan Bass (Chicago: U Chicago P, 1978).63. Habermas loquently ummarizes Cassirer's iew: "The position of human being

in the world is defined by a form-giving power which transforms ense impressions ntomeaningful tructures. Human beings master he forces of nature which rush in upon themthrough ymbols which spring rom the productive magination. Thus they gain a distancefrom the immediate pressure f nature. Of course, heypay for this emancipation with theirmental dependence n a semanticized ature, which returns n the spellbindingforce f myth-ical images. That irst act of distantiation must herefore e repeated n the course of culturaldevelopment." iirgen Habermas, "The Liberating Power of Symbols: Ernst Cassirer'sHumanistic Legacy and the Warburg ibrary," heLiberating ower of Symbols: Philosoph-

ical Essays, rans. Peter Dews (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001) 1-29, 24, my emphasis.64. This view of dependency s summarized n Heidegger's almost "mythical" ro-nouncement hat humanity does not possess language, since language is the "house ofBeing." See Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism," athmarks, d. William McNeill (Cam-bridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1998) 254.


27/43


The Davos Encounter and the Myth-DebateThe contrast between thrown and spontaneous subjectivity was

brought to a head during Heidegger and Cassirer's famous meeting atDavos in 1929. The proposed topic was Kant's philosophy, whichremained a major touchstone for any broader philosophical discussion.Even in the Weimar era, Kant was, in Heinrich Rickert's phrase, the"philosopher of modem culture."65 t seemed natural to organize thepublic encounter between Cassirer and Heidegger as a debate over theproper nterpretation f Kantian doctrine.

It quickly became obvious that not only did Cassirer and Heidegger

disagree about how best to read Kant, but more profoundly, about thestatus of philosophy as such. Indeed, Cassirer quickly discerned thatHeidegger deploys Kant as an opportunity o promote his own "existen-tial" brand of phenomenology. After listening to Heidegger's attempt otransform Kantian epistemology nto what he called a "groundlaying ormetaphysics" or three weeks, Cassirer omplained hat

there s hardly single concept which has been paraphrased ith solittle clarity s that of neo-Kantianism. hatdoes Heidegger ave n

mind when he employs he phenomenological ritique n place of theneo-Kantian one? Neo-Kantianism s the scapegoat [Stindenbock] fthe newer philosophy.66

Heidegger's entire presentation of "existential" philosophy is, Cassirerclaimed, based upon a one-sided caricature f the Marburg neo-Kantianlegacy. Heidegger spoke as if Cohen's entire teaching could be reducedto a mere theory of scientific discovery, whereas, in fact, Cassirer sug-gested, the term "neo-Kantianism" as best understood not "substan-

tially" but "functionally." he Kantian view is not reducible o a "kindof philosophy as dogmatic doctrinal system" [als dogmatisches Lehr-system] but is instead "a direction or posing questions." eine Richtungder Fragestellung]67

65. Heinrich Rickert, Kant als Philosoph der modernen Kultur; in geschichtsphil-osophischer Versuch Tilbingen: .C.B. Mohr, 1924).

66. "Davos Disputation," ited in the original Davos transcript rom Otto FriedrichBollnow and Joachim Ritter, Martin Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik,GS, Band 3 (1973) 274-296, in English, n Heidegger, Kant and the Problem ofMetaphys-ics, trans. Richard Taft (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1990) 171-185; 171, translationammended. Hereafter ited as Davos. For documentation nd interpretative sssays, seemost recently, Dominic Kaegi and Enno Rudolph, eds. Cassirer Heidegger 70 JahreDavoser Debatte (Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 2002).

67. Davos 171.


28/43


But if Cassirer s right, then the difference between his own quasi-Kantian "direction" f philosophical nquiry and Heidegger's "existen-

tial" orientation s even more dramatic han it appeared at first. Kantian-ism is merely the "scapegoat" or a general disagreement concerningthe status of the "modern" ubject in philosophy. Cassirer insists thatthe theory of symbolic forms illustrates he validity of the Kantian-tran-scendental subject-model, since the theory shows how human experi-ence in diverse spheres is governed by the formative action of humanspirit tself. It is the principle of form, Cassirer aid, that allows the sub-ject to "transpose verything n him which is lived experience nto some

objective shape," in which he discovers nothing but his own mentalenergy "objectified" as world-meaning. There is, Cassirer affirms, "atrue spiritual realm," but it is nothing more or less than "the spiritualworld created from himself."68 Moreover, whatever one's doubts con-cerning the origins of human culture, t is clear that ethics provides anillustration of the human capacity to live by forms one has oneself cre-ated. Cassirer concludes that this is the essence of Kantian autonomyand through he categorical mperative, he human being is capable of a"breakthrough" Durchbruch] o a plane "which is no longer relative tothe finitude" of mere existence.69

Heidegger, not surprisingly, ound such arguments unacceptable, andhe noted that any inquiry into the "essence" of human being must befounded on an ontological basis quite different from the neo-Kantianpremise of mental spontaneity. "How is the inner structure of Daseinitself," he asked, "is it finite or infinite?" To answer this question,Heidegger claimed, one must return o "philosophy's central problem-atic," which implies throwing man "into he totality of beings" n order o

"reveal o him there, with all his freedom, he nothingness of his Dasein."Heidegger understood hat from the neo-Kantian position, a philoso-pher's fixation on themes of world-dependency r finitude appear as lit-tle more than an "occasion or pessimism and melancholy." But it was infact an "occasion or understanding ...] that philosophy has the task ofthrowing man back, so to speak, into the hardness of his fate from theshallow aspect of a man who merely uses the work of the spirit."70

Cassirer's allusion to ethics does not prove the self's "infinite" for-

mative agency, since even the categorical imperative requires a finite68. Davos 179.69. Davos 291.70. Davos 291.


29/43


being whose capacities for self-transparency are, Heidegger claims,necessarily limited to mortal existence.

In the Categorical mperative we have something which goes beyondthe finite creature. But precisely he concept of the Imperative s suchshows the inner reference o a finite creature. Also, this going-beyondto something higher s always ust a going-beyond o the finite creature,to one which is created angel). This transcendence oo still remainswithin the [sphere of] creatureliness Geschapflichkeit] nd finitude.71

For Heidegger, the transcendental capacities of the self are severely lim-ited by the constitutive features of "creatureliness." What Cassirer cele-brates as the human ability to "live" in obedience to one's own rules is,from another perspective, further evidence of the fact that mentalagency cannot achieve, as Cassirer contends, any true "breakthrough" oa sphere of absolute objectivity. Heidegger's startling reference to an"angel" demonstrates that his philosophical rejection of an enlighten-ment model of mental spontaneity draws upon religious resources.

The Davos disputation has remained a reference point in the historyof philosophy, not least because it has afforded many commentators

with a dramatic illustration of the cultural rift which threatened Ger-man culture n 1929.72 There is some evidence that the public confron-tation between the two philosophers was not entirely amicable. One ofCassirer's students has written that when Cassirer offered his hand tohis interlocutor t the end of the discussion, Heidegger refused o take it.

71. Davos 279.72. On the Davos disputation, ee the excellent study by Michael Friedman, A Part-

ing of the Ways Chicago: Open Court, 2000); and also Pierre Aubenque, Luc Ferry, Enno

Rudolph, Jean-Francois Courtine, and Fabien Capeillires, "Roundtable Discussion on'Philosophie und Politik: Die Davoser Disputation wischen Ernst Cassirer und MartinHeidegger n der Retrospektive'," nternationale Zeitschriftfiir hilosophie, Heft 2 (1992):290-312; Aubenque, "Le Ddbat de 1929 entre Cassirer t Heidegger" Ernst Cassirer: DeMarbourg i New York, L'intindraire hilosophique, d. Jean Seidengart Paris: Les Edi-tions du Cerf, 1990) 81-96; Wayne Cristaudo, Heidegger nd Cassirer: Being, Knowingand Politics," Kantstudien 2 (1991): 469-483; Karlfried Griinder, Cassirer nd Heideggerin Davos, 1929" Ober Ernst Cassirers Philosophie der Symbolishen Formen, eds. Hans-Jirg Braun, Helmut Holzhey, and Emrnst .Orth Frankfurt/Main: uhrkamp, 988); JohnMichael Krois, "Aufklrung und Metaphysik: Zur Philosophie Cassirers und der DavoserDebatte mit Heidegger," nternationale Zeitschriftfiir hilosophie 2 (1992): 273-289; Den-nis A. Lynch, "Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger: The Davos Debate," Kantstudien 1(1990): 360-370; Frank Schalow, "Thinking t Cross Purposes with Kant: Reason, Fini-tude, and Truth n the Cassirer-Heidegger ebate," Kantstudien 7 (1996): 198-217; andCalvin O.Shrag, "Heidegger nd Cassirer n Kant," Kantstudien 8 (1967): 87-100.


30/43


Moreover, our years later, Heidegger assumed he position of Rektor atFreiburg University under the aegis of the National Socialists, whereas

Cassirer and his wife fled Hamburg n 1933, first to Vienna, and then toEngland and Sweden, before settling n the United States n 1941.

Many critics have been tempted o read Cassirer's confrontation withHeidegger in a straightforwardly olitical fashion. For Pierre Bourdieu,it appeared obvious that Heidegger's language is little more than abarely encrypted "irrationalism," "conservative revolution" directedagainst liberal-democracy nd the cultural egacy of Kant.73 Even Jtir-gen Habermas ransforms Cassirer's arguments nto presentist political

material when he notes that the "humanist legacy which Cassirerbequeaths o us through his philosophy consists not least in sensitizingus to the fake primordiality f political myths." In what seems an inten-tional reference to Heidegger, Habermas hastens to add that "Cassirermakes us wary of the intellectual celebration of archaic origins, whichis widespread oday as in the 1930s."74

It would be rash, however, to read the Heidegger-Cassirer ispute inany directly "political" ashion.75 The Davos encounter was only onemoment in an ongoing philosophical discussion as to whether he mod-emrnist's aith in the autonomy of the subject is warranted. Cassirer'sessentially Kantian view of spontaneous onsciousness contrasts dramati-cally with Heidegger's theory of human being-in-the-world s essen-tially "thrown." ignificantly, Cassirer's portrait f mythic consciousnessbears striking resemblance o Heidegger's portrait of Dasein, notwith-standing its historical status, primitive or modern. For example, what

73. Bourdieu's violent reduction of philosophy o little more than a field of culturalpower seems remarkably nconsistent with any defense of rationalism. Of course, this is

not Bourdieu's point, since he reflexively admits the embeddedness of his own perspec-tive. Still, he risks making a merely ad hominem llegory when he suggests that "Heideg-ger's hostility to the grand masters of Kantianism, specially Cassirer, was rooted in aprofound ncompatibility with their alien habitus," which included the tension between"this dark, atheletic ittle man," and the "white-haired man, Olympian not only in appear-ance but in spirit." One should note that Bourdieu s quoting the memoir of an audiencemember at Davos; the question remains what Heidegger's "dark" ppearance s supposedto indicate n contrast o Cassirer's prematurely white hair. Needless to say, the contrast,Olympian reference aside, calls upon a panoply of mythical oppositions. See Pierre Bour-dieu, The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger. Stanford: tanford UP, 1991) 48.

74. Habermas, The Liberating Power of Symbols" 26.75. For a longer reatment f the problems nvolved n the political nterpretation f

the Davos encounter, see my essay, "Continental Divide: Ernst Cassirer and MartinHeidegger at Davos, 1929 - an Allegory of Intellectual History," Modern IntellectualHistory 1.2 (2004): 219-248.


31/43


Cassirer considered peculiar o the mythic conception of space - where"zones and directions Orte und Richtungen] f space stand out from one

another because a different ccent of meaning s connected with them"anticipates he "existential" f space-as-environment hat Heidegger con-sidered a structural eature of being-in-the-world. If Dasein, in its con-cern, brings something close by, this does not signify that it fixessomething at a spatial position with a minimal distance rom some pointsof the body"; t signifies a "regional" nd ready-to-hand nvolvement nso-far as it is "something [. . .] we can come across [...] as having form anddirection [wird das Zuhandene nach Form und Richtung vorfindlich]."76

The apparent imilarity between these two theories of space is evenmore striking, because Cassirer emphasizes the merely provisional sta-tus of the mythic conception. He claims that myth, by force of its owndialectical logic, must eventually "go beyond" itself to the moreabstracted symbolism of religion, and eventually to the enlightenedframeworks of science.77 On Cassirer's view, myth necessarily outgrewthose very modes of understanding hat Heidegger considered permanentand structural existentials" f human being.78 Moreover, n a footnote oPSF, Cassirer hinted at a resemblance between the mythic conception oflanguage and certain characteristics f "psychopathology."79 his is aprofound, but politically indeterminate emark. Still, it contains a force-ful anticipation of Cassirer's ater claim that Heidegger's philosophy isitself symptomatic f the modern reversion o myth. Almost twenty yearslater, once Cassirer had begun teaching n America, he expanded on thisargument n his own, expressly political assessment of Heidegger's hink-ing in what was to be his final work, The Myth of the State.

Cassirer's Political TestamentCassirer's The Myth of the State is one of the faded classics of mid-

twentieth-century ntellectual history. A genealogy of National Socialism,

76. Cassirer, PSF II 96 (German 122); Heidegger, BT 144-45; SZ 110-111.77. See esp. PSF, II, Part IV, "The Dialectic of Mythical Consciousness" 35-261.78. For Cassirer's xplicit remarks n surpassing Heideggerian ragmatic pace, see

the remarks in PSF, Vol. III: "What distinguishes our own undertaking rom that ofHeidegger s above all that t does not stop at this stage of the at-hand and its mode of spa-tiality, but without challenging Heidegger's position goes beyond t; for we wish to followthe road leading from spatiality as a factor n the at-hand o space as a form of existence,and furthermore o show how this road eads right hrough he domain of symbolic forma-tion." 149 n. 4, my emphasis.

79. See PSF II 41-42, n. 13.


32/43


it presents the history of political thought as an ongoing strugglebetween "logos" and "mythos," between a "rational" heory of the state

promoting reedom and autonomy, nd a "mythic" heory presenting heworld as governed by forces beyond human control, condemning us tounfreedom and ontological passivity. Within his broad scheme, Cassireremphasizes those moments of struggle between logos and myth thatanticipate he modern clash between the republican deal of autarky andthe fascist myth of collective submission. He takes particular care toprove how the contemporary ncounter with mythic politics is rooted inancient sources. Plato's "struggle against myth" and the consequent ban-

ishmentof the

artsfrom the

polisis

onlyan

expressionof

that deeper,"rationalist" endency in Platonic thought, which, Cassirer claims,teaches "how to classify and systematize our concepts," o impose formupon the world and bring "the chaos of our minds, of our desires andpassions, of our political and social life [.. .] into order and harmony."80

For Cassirer, a rational heory of politics cannot be defined in isola-tion from broader philosophical commitments. A politics of reasongains its definitive character only insofar as it draws upon a transcen-dental theory of mind, and as a rational epistemology mplies spontane-ity, it demands a model of the subject hat is capable of actively forgingthe rules that order its experience. Similarly, rational politics imply"autarky" r self-rule: To be rational s to enjoy an active share in self-governance. But for Cassirer, here is more than an analogy between theepistemological and political manifestations of reason. As discussedabove, Cassirer believes that "mythic" onsciousness s essentially inca-pable of recognizing its own formative agency. It follows that a mythi-cal vision of the world lacks the experience of self-transparency hat

autarky requires. Only a fully secular consciousness achieves the fullmeasure of self-recognition nd therefore elf-governance.81

Cassirer llustrates his point by assessing some of the paramount ig-ures of Western political theory. Machiavelli's theory of statecraft, orexample, can hardly be considered a perfect expression of autarky, incegovernment s solely for the prince and not the people. Nonetheless, itis an important tep in the "secularization f the symbol of Fortune."82Although originally a mythic force beyond human appeal, Fortuna

80. MS 93.81. For a summary of this theme in German dealism, see my review essay, "Self-

Authorizing Modernity, Problems of Interpretation n the History of German Idealism,"History and Theory 44 (Feb. 2005): 121-137.

82. MS 199, emphasis n original.


33/43


becomes in Machiavelli's thinking a principle at least potentiallyresponsive to human agency. Cassirer notes that for Machiavelli he true

measure of princely skill is the ability to achieve some measure of ratio-nal mastery. "Man s

Critica de Cassirer a Heid.

Documents

Transcript of Critica de Cassirer a Heid.