Rövid leírás:

The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is Cassirer's most important work. This major new translation brings his magnum opus to a new generation of students and scholars. Volume 2: Mythical Thought considers the role of myth in human thought and expression.

Hosszú leírás:

"The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is one of the landmarks of twentieth century philosophy. Drawing from the influential work of Wilhelm Dilthey, it transformed neo-Kantianism into a new robust philosophy of culture. The second volume, on Mythical Thinking, analyzes the fundamental layers of perception and expression as well as the articulations with religion and the dialectic with other forms, essentially language and art.

The intellectual breadth of the volume is remarkable. It initiated the debate with Martin Heidegger and prompted a long-lasting meditation by Hans Blumenberg. We are only beginning to recognize its importance for our understanding of the power of images in the construction of aesthetics, the self, and the socio-political world. It initiated a discussion within French sociology (Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss) that ultimately resurfaced in Pierre Bourdieu, while today it is considered as a resourceful path for cultural and critical theory (Drucilla Cornell and Kenneth M. Panfilio). Finally, this volume also offers solid grounds for a political critique of Nazism - specifically: Alfred Rosenberg?s Myth of the 20th Century and Adolf Hitler?s Mein Kampf - as well as the new emerging totalitarian ideologies."
Fabien Capeilleres, Professor of Philosophy, editor of the French edition of Cassirer?s Works.

This new translation makes Cassirer?s seminal work available to a new generation of scholars. Each volume includes a translator?s introduction by Steve G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter E. Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and an index.

'The three volumes of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms focus on language, myth, and science respectively, offering fascinating, if necessarily fragmentary and speculative, accounts of how each develops in the direction of increasing freedom and universality? the basic insight of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is one that continues to inform the humanities today. The categories we use to understand the world aren?t a passive reflection of the way things really are; rather, we actively create systems of meaning that evolve over time.' - Adam Kirsch, New York Review of Books

Tartalomjegyzék:

Foreword Peter E. Gordon;  Translator?s Preface Steve G. Lofts;  Translator?s Introduction: A Transcendental Critique of Mythical-Religious Consciousness: Identity-Thinking, the Natural Attitude, and an Immanence in the Sacred Sense of Life Steve G. Lofts; Translator?s Acknowledgements Steve G. Lofts;  Preface;  Introduction: The Problem of A "Philosophy of Mythology"  Part 1: Myth as Thought-Form  1. The Character and Basic Tendency of Mythical Object Consciousness  2. The Individual Categories of Mythical Thinking  Part 2: Myth as Form of Intuition: The Construction and Organization of the Spatialtemporal World in Mythical Consciousness  1. The Basic Opposition  2. The Basic Features of a Morphology of Myth: Space, Time, and Number  Part 3: Myth as Life-Form: The Discovery and Determination of Subjective Reality in Mythical Consciousness  1. The I and the Soul  2. The Forming Emergence of the Feeling of Self from the Mythical Feeling of Unity and Life  3. Cult and Sacrifice  Part 4: The Dialectic of Mythical Consciousness.  Glossary of German Terms; Index.