Ernst Cassirer: A "Repetition" of Modernity PDF
Preview Ernst Cassirer: A "Repetition" of Modernity
cover cover next page > title: Ernst Cassirer : A "Repetition" of Modernity SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy author: Lofts, Steve G. publisher: State University of New York Press isbn10 | asin: 0791444961 print isbn13: 9780791444962 ebook isbn13: 9780585362915 language: English subject Cassirer, Ernst,--1874-1945. publication date: 2000 lcc: B3216.C34L64 2000eb ddc: 193 subject: Cassirer, Ernst,--1874-1945. cover next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/start_here.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:32] page_i < previous page page_i next page > Page i Ernst Cassirer < previous page page_i next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/files/page_i.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:33] cover cover next page > title: Ernst Cassirer : A "Repetition" of Modernity SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy author: Lofts, Steve G. publisher: State University of New York Press isbn10 | asin: 0791444961 print isbn13: 9780791444962 ebook isbn13: 9780585362915 language: English subject Cassirer, Ernst,--1874-1945. publication date: 2000 lcc: B3216.C34L64 2000eb ddc: 193 subject: Cassirer, Ernst,--1874-1945. cover next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/files/cover.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:33] page_ii < previous page page_ii next page > Page ii SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy Dennis J. Schmidt, editor < previous page page_ii next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/files/page_ii.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:34] page_iii < previous page page_iii next page > Page iii Ernst Cassirer A "Repetition" of Modernity S. G. Lofts Foreword by John Michael Krois < previous page page_iii next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/files/page_iii.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:34] page_iv < previous page page_iv next page > Page iv Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2000 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address the State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246 Production by Kristin Milavec Marketing by Patrick Durocher Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lofts, Steve G., 1959 Ernst Cassirer : a "repetition" of modernity / S. G. Lofts : foreword by John Michael Krois. p. cm. (SUNY series in contemporary continental philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-4495-3 (hardcover : alk. paper). ISBN 0-7914-4496-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Cassirer, Ernst, 18741945. I. Title. II. Series. B3216.C34L64 2000 193dc21 99-39699 CIP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 < previous page page_iv next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/files/page_iv.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:34] page_v < previous page page_v next page > Page v Pour Jacqueline et Jean-Louis Bustin en tout amitié < previous page page_v next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/files/page_v.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:35] page_vii < previous page page_vii next page > Page vii Contents Foreword: A Reading of the Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, John Michael Krois ix Acknowledgments xi List of Abbreviations and References xiii Introduction: The Strategy of Reading . . . 1 1 The "Crisis" in the Project of Rationality 23 2 The Structure of the Symbolic Function as the Function of Structure 35 3 Language: The "Genesis" of Signification and the Aufbau of the Objective World 61 4 Myth as the Other of Logos or the Texture of the Real: The Presence of Meaning as the Meaning of Presence 85 5 Religion: The "Logic of Absurdity" and the Intuition of the Real 125 6 Science: The Writing of a Lingua Universalis 161 7 Art: The "Eye of Spirit" and the "Cloak of Reality" 183 Conclusion: Cassirer's Metaphysics of the Symbolic Forms 201 Notes 223 Bibliography 241 Index 261 < previous page page_vii next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/files/page_vii.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:35] page_ix < previous page page_ix next page > Page ix Foreword: A Reading of the Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer Steve Lofts' interpretation of Cassirer's philosophy as developed in this book, derives from his reading of Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms in the context of contemporary continental philosophy, and in particular as a form of structuralism avant la lettre. Without resorting to an ahistorical textual interpretation, or subsuming Cassirer's philosophy under the rubric of a philosophical school (e.g., neo-Kantianism) Lofts has read and reread Cassirer (and this means a lot of reading), thinking while he reads, and treating Cassirer as a thinker in his own right. In his work he guides the reader through the labyrinth of Cassirer's oeuvre. We discover in the course of our odyssey a very different Cassirer than the one we are accustomed too. We discover a Cassirer who was acutely aware of the historical and cultural changes we glibly call postmodernity, who's philosophical enterprise was to reaffirm and transform the project of modernity in such a way as to overcome its traditional shortcomings. Many of the topics that have become the acknowledged focal point of both the continental and analytic directions of philosophy prove to be central to Cassirer's < previous page page_ix next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/files/page_ix.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:36] page_x < previous page page_x next page > Page x philosophy of symbolic forms. It is to the author's credit to have shown, without doing violence to Cassirer's work or losing sight of what renders it unique, that this thoroughly modern thinker still has something to contribute to the contemporary philosophical debate. In the past, the breadth Cassirer's conception of culture has often led to a superficial, piecemeal reception of his thought. As a result the systematic unity of his philosophy of culture and symbolic forms has been largely overlooked. In Lofts' study, particular topics are treated in relation to one another through an underlying systematic unity of culture; the chapters on art and religion are outstanding examples of this. Lofts' reading moves from one element or stage in the symbolic process of cultural meaning to another, bringing to the foreground the internal systematic unity of this process. The philosophical implications of Cassirer's acclaimed investigations into the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and the historical orientation of his thought have yet to be sufficiently understood. The emphasis that is placed throughout this work upon the historicity of being demonstrates once and for all that Cassirer was a philosopher of historicity and not a historian of philosophy. In one of the best analyses yet of Cassirer's metaphysics of the symbolic form, we discover in the conclusion of this work that Cassirer was a thoroughly speculative and even dialectical thinker. By taking Cassirer's works in their own terms, Lofts has shown that the philosophy of symbolic forms embodied a new kind of thinking whose importance we are only now becoming able to recognize in light of subsequent developments in philosophy and cultural studies. JOHN MICHAEL KROIS < previous page page_x next page > file:///C|/Users/Toshiba/Desktop/111111/0791444961/files/page_x.html[2017/9/2 下午 10:56:36]
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