Ernst Cassirer on the Five Forms of Symbolization
Typology
Jeffrey Bishop:
"Ernst Cassirer, the early twentieth century neo-Kantian philosopher, argued that, rather than the a priori forms of space and time, we should understand the conditions of possibility for human thought to be immanentized symbolic forms.
According to Cassirer, there are five symbolic forms including
- mythology/religion,
- art,
- language,
- history, and
- science.
These symbolic forms are given by a culture, and each form mediates some aspect of the relationship between the subject who encounters an object and the object that the subject encounters. Every culture has each of these symbolical forms, even those cultures, like ours, that deny they have a mythology. Each symbolic form mediates a different aspect of knowledge. Mythology/religion mediates moral knowledge; art mediates aesthetic knowledge; history mediates knowledge of the past; language mediates many different kinds of knowledge about reality; and science mediates factual knowledge of reality.
According to Cassirer,
- mythology is the dominant symbolic form for “primitive” cultures. Mythology anthropomorphizes of the powers of the universe. Thus, Poseidon/Neptune is the power of the sea; Hefestus/Vulcan is the power of the volcano and fire. Greco-Roman mythology represented the forces of the world anthropomorphically through myths. Yet, mythology does not have a moral dimension to it, according to Cassirer. The gods of Greece and Rome are fickle. Poseidon can destroy a human walking by the sea for no reason at all. They lack the moral dimension. Mythology anthropomorphizes what is the case. Power just is; it lacks an ought.
- Cassirer goes on to say that religion adds the moral “ought” to mythology. The power of Poseidon can destroy the human for no reason, but it ought not be the case. There is value to the person beyond the mere facts. Mytho-religion is the symbolic form that creates the moral code and moral duty, in Cassirer’s philosophy. Mytho-religion mediates our relationships between God and humankind, between and among humankind, and between humankind and the rest of creation. In other words, Cassirer sees the moral dimension as adding the level of duty to the powers of reality, and the duties are spelled out by the law codes. I will say more about religion later.
- Cassirer says that in our day, science is the symbolic form that mediates our understanding of the powers of the world, now thought of as electromagnetism, gravity, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Yet, none of us have sense experiences of these forces."
(https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/toward-a-liturgical-cosmotechnics/?)