Yuk Hui refers to cosmotechnics as the deep interweaving of human action and technology as shaped by diverse moral universes. In this article, I pit two views of cosmotechnics against each other. I...

Machiavelli's advice to the prince is to avoid self-interest and to work for the good of the state. This is not to say, however, that Machiavelli does not counsel evil. To achieve the good, one must do evil. It is necessary. But it is still evil. Machiavelli is not a utilitarian or a moral consequentialist in ethics. If an action has certain desirable consequences, it may be politically necessary to perform that action. But that does not make the action moral. (...) If it is evil, it remains evil. Yet it is necessary to do it to achieve the good. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer viewed mythical thinking as a first step in our mental representation of the real world, but only a first step. What myth leaves out are the differentiations that lead eventually to science. To the primitive, mythically inclined mind, the world is an undifferentiated whole, the elements of which—including the mind itself—are thought to be concrete and interconnected. This means that there is no distinction between observer and observed, and that the observer sees the representations with which she constructs (...) her picture of reality as direct apprehensions of reality, untnediated by any sensory or cognitive categories. Far as that way of thinking may seem from the modern mindset, we have only to examine commonplace political ideas to find evidence of the implicit assumption of an unmediated connection between the wishes of poltical agents and the results they intend to achieve. (shrink)

Narrative construction is a discursive practice: storytellers draw on the language, signs and symbols of their culture to provide meaning through stories. Stories that reflect the values, ideals an...

This article argues that Ernst Cassirer's views about the concept of substance and his views on mythic consciousness are applicable to the concept of race. By analyzing examples from the most influential and representative racial theories, this article shows that the concept of race functions like the concept of substance whereby random, large-scale, and irreducibly complex phenomena is explained through the deterministic behavior of a smaller, material, constituent part. Given that mythic consciousness explains causality in the same way, this substance-mode (...) explanation of becoming can also be termed “mythic.” Further, under this substance/racial understanding of personhood, humans have no agency to determine their own fates. It is this fatalism that Cassirer railed against in The Myth of the State. In place of this substance (racial) understanding of personhood, and as this article will describe, Cassirer argued for a “functional” (cultural) understanding of personhood. (shrink)

To commemorate the centenary of Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms this essay focuses on how Cassirer in the development of a distinctive philosophical method analyzed the newest development within philosophy and science. Discussing Einstein's theory of relativity and Russell's formal logic Cassirer found tools to expand the critique of reason into a critique of culture. The course of argumentation is as follows. At the outset Cassirer's outline of the idea of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms in the 1920 book (...) Einstein's Theory of Relativity is presented as a reaction to the increasing distance between theoretical physics and ordinary experience. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms can be read as an answer to an inner methodological demand within critical idealism. I encircle this motif in Cassirer's comment that Plato's idealism, understood as the dianoia of thought, is reiterated in Kant's transcendental philosophy and Herman Cohen's reception of Kant. This leads to a discussion of how Cassirer breaks away from Cohen by the positive reception of Russell's symbolic logic. Finally, I present the theory of functional concepts developed by Cassirer (1910) in the book Substance and Function as a prerequisite for the conception of a plural but systematic philosophy of symbolic forms. (shrink)

This article suggests that human action in Machiavelli is both materialistic and temporalized. It further argues that Reinhart Koselleck’s view of Machiavelli’s understanding of time as historical circularity is misleading. The author is making the case that Machiavelli drew from Lucretian materialism to strip political concepts of content via an animal-materialist anthropology and ontology holding that man, as any animal, is material reality acting under an atomic arrangement wherein no time, whether linear or circular, can exist. The conclusion is that (...) Koselleck’s interpretation of the circularity of time in Machiavelli kept him from seeing his role as an antecedent of the conceptual and temporal revolution underlying the Sattelzeit. (shrink)

Although Cassirer's four-volume Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit has long been highly regarded as an example of historical scholarship — Cassirer was awarded the golden Kuno-Fischer Medal of the University of Heidelberg in July 1914 for the first two volumes — its importance for understanding his theoretical position seems to have gone unrecognized. In the English-speaking world it is, unfortunately, only known through the fourth volume, and when this appeared in English in 1950 it met (...) with a negative, even hostile, reception. (shrink)

This paper shows that while there seems to be more or less a general acceptance for plurality as a condition of world politics and at least a vague commitment to a pluralist ideal, the challenge remains to formulate a fruitful account of international pluralism. While dominating approaches to international theory present international pluralism as essentially a by-product and instrumental, this paper suggest an alternative way to conceive of international pluralism when defending the ancient concept variety as a better guide to (...) approach both the understanding of plurality as the human condition and the notion of international pluralism. The paper concludes that it is preferable to accept a variety of pluralist conceptions rather than go on searching for a theoretical conception standing above the controversy; accepting pluralism in a sense involves rejecting just one version of pluralism. (shrink)

This article examines the mutual influence between Ernst Cassirer and his cousin, the neurologist Kurt Goldstein. For both Cassirer and Goldstein, views on the nature of human cognition were fundamental to their understanding of scientific knowledge, and these were informed by both philosophical theorizing and empirical research on pathologies of the nervous system. Following Cassirer, and in agreement with the physicalism of the Vienna Circle, Goldstein held that the physical sciences had progressed by arriving at abstract, mathematical representations to take (...) the place of qualitative characterizations of observable reality. In tension with physicalism, Goldstein was not sanguine about the fruitfulness of the abstractive approach in biology. He proposed that biology must adhere to its own sui generis methods of observation and experimentation in order to obtain knowledge of the “natures” of living organisms. I argue that there is a parallel with Cassirer’s assertion of the differences between physical and cultural sciences, underwritten by the deployment of varying symbolic functions. I also propose that the neurological writings of Goldstein are an important backdrop to Cassirer’s positive evaluation of abstract thought, in contrast to the pessimism regarding a worldview dominated by scientific abstractions expressed by philosophers such as Bergson, Whitehead, and Husserl. (shrink)

The paper discusses legal implications of the expansion of practical uses of mathematics in social life. Taking as a starting point the omnipresence of mathematical infrastructures underlying policies, technology and markets, the paper proceeds by attending to relevant materials offered by general philosophy, legal philosophy, and the history and philosophy of mathematics. The paper suggests that the modern transformation of mathematics and its practical applications have spurred the emergence of multiple useful technologies and forms of social interaction but have impoverished (...) access to meanings originating in the lifeworld. The paper also argues that, as part of devices of interest aggregation and expert networks, mathematical infrastructures can be scrutinized by a revised form of legal practice that subjects them to legal critique and reconstruction in order to overcome conditions that have eroded the moral self-awareness of individuals and communities and their existential meanings. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945), Neo-Kantian philosopher of Marburg school, studies myth as a component of symbolic forms. He considers myth as the cornerstone of philosophy of culture as well as the source of such other forms as language, religion, art and science. Cassirer, applying an epistemological approach towards myths and other realms of human culture, argues that human beings experience the world through a mediated process. Of course, this mediated encounter with the world has different aspects in the evolving course of (...) culture. These aspects are completely dependent upon the symbolic form through which man experiences his world. However, it seems what Cassirer puts forth as an explanation of the cultural evolution of mankind is basically influenced by his semiotic viewpoints. Therefore, the present article tries to find the theoretical resources of Cassirer’s thought and analyze his reasoning in this regard. Emphasizing Cassirer’s theoretical assumptions as well as his methodology, we have tried to better understand his claims about myth and other symbolic forms. It has been revealed that Cassirer’s theory is mainly shaped by his particular models of semiotic functions. Analyzing the semiotic functions of each specific form indicates that Cassirer has differentiated three independent functions. Each of these functions works on an expressive,Ausdrucken.representative,Darstellungen.or signifyingBedeutungen.basis and is respectively correspondent with myth, language, and science. (shrink)

Провідними дослідницькими наративами статті є вплив мистецьких стратегій на полі- тичну комунікацію за умов постправди; політична уява і режим постправди; мистецтво і режим істини; раціональність ілюзій у політичній комунікації; техніки мистецької суґестії у публічному діалозі. Йдеться про використання принципу вірогідності ілюзії, зокрема, ри- туалів леґітимації у процесі боротьби за прихильність виборця. Аналізовано техніки мис- тецької суґестії у публічному діалозі. Особливе місце посідає аналіз міфологічного перетво- рення реальності на ґрунті мистецьких стратегій, тема раціональності ілюзії. Проведено аналіз міфологічного перетворення реальності на основі (...) мистецьких стратегій. Розглянуто зв’я зок таких понять, як поезія, мистецтво і технологія, з розгортанням процесів техноло- гічного вдосконалення у будь-якій сфері людської діяльності. (shrink)