In this article, I propose an investigation of Ernst Cassirer’s conception of truth, as set out in his inaugural address as rector of Hamburg University, in light of two key concepts of his philosophy, i.e., function and symbolic form. My aim is neither to give an exhaustive exposition of the subject, nor to attempt to elaborate a complete Cassirerian theory of truth. Rather, I want to focus on how the Cassirerian conception of truth can be useful in countering certain contemporary (...) anti-scientific tendencies, particularly those born from the fear that modern science could destroy other cultural forms (especially religion). Specifically, I believe that Cassirer’s conception enables us to identify criteria by which to distinguish science from non-scientific endeavours and to preserve the primacy of science in the cognitive enterprise, without calling social consensus into question (avoiding the risks of relativization), but also without resorting to positivistic dogmatisms that condemn everything that is not science to falsity or nonsense. By tracing back any kind of truth to its own contest of meaning and by identifying this context of meaning on transcendental and semiotic bases, Cassirer’s conception opens to a pluralistic and pragmatic approach that leaves space for the possibility of non-scientific truths, which, while not being entitled to interfere with the scientific work, can still be considered legitimate and valuable. (shrink)

The reflection on the preconditions and evolution of science has played a decisive role in the development of Ernst Cassirer's philosophy, contributing to its functional and thus inherently pluralistic and holistic view of knowledge. To present Cassirer's conception of physics as an open symbolic formation enables us to reveal and study the radical features of his epistemological model: (1) the fundamental process of generating sense-units and meaning in its constitutive character for each attempt of objectification, (2) its driving and structuring (...) dynamics that touches and transforms all elements of knowledge, the a priori included, (3) the strategies of justification that allow maintaining the claim of truthfulness in spite the fact that Cassirer's open model integrates contingency and transitoriness as an inherent part of knowledge. It thus becomes clear that Cassirer's term 'symbol' cannot be reduced to its habitual representational acceptation, for its key theoretical function is to overcome the inconsistencies of dualistic epistemological models. It is this re-orientation, a kind of 'second Copernican revolution', that allows Cassirer to go beyond traditional dichotomies and to propose a larger frame in which to appreciate the diversity of human understanding. (shrink)

The relation between Garin and Cassirer is still an insufficiently investigated topic, here proposed also in light of their personal connections and documents. This relation represents an important episode in the Nachwirkung of Cassirer in Italy. Garin was deeply influenced by Cassirer’s historical research and philosophical thought, in the shaping of his own research fields and in the methodological debates about the history of philosophy.

1. Samantha Matherne’s book Cassirer is, other than its publication in the series Routledge Philosophers might suggest, not simply an introductory volume. It is perhaps the best overall account of...

The essay focuses on the dispute over the Kantian legacy that took place in Davos, in 1929, between Cassirer and Heidegger. The relationship between imagination, freedom and politics is at its core. Two different readings of Kant stand in a discrepancy that generates dismay. An opposition, not a hermeneutical leveling, stands between the two. It is a philosophical opposition that is intimately linked to the positivity of what is posed - and not necessarily opposed — next to the opposite position; (...) philosophical opposition as a productive figure of the negative, because it incorporates the potential for movement and transformation that the negative has, avoiding the exclusion of one interpretation from the other. One must therefore read the confrontation or dispute between Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos as a real opposition between opposing forces, both positive, because neither philosophy derives its meaning from the negation of the other, as Kant would have said. The opposites do not contradict each other, but rather face each other according to an ontological and symbolic plan which on the one hand makes them both necessary but on the other hand opposes them in a single space of knowledge. In the background stand the black shadows that stretch over Germany and Europe. Darkness that will soon throw the opposition into the darkness, imposing a night of the world in which one philosophy will save the symbolic through the exile, while the other philosophy will abandon itself to its destructive repetition leading to the annihilation of the being. (shrink)