The Symbolic Functions of Consciousness in Ernst Cassirer's Phenomenology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53000/pfnvsk83Keywords:
Representation, Subjectivity, Culture, Symbolic formsAbstract
This article provides an overview of the three symbolic functions of consciousness outlined in close relation to sections of Volume III (Phenomenology of Knowledge) of Ernst Cassirer’s Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (1929): the expressive function, the representative function, and the purely significative function. According to Samantha Matherne (2021), these three specific symbolic functions point to a general function of consciousness: “representation” (Repräsentation). The problem lies in the lack of consensus in the scholarly literature regarding the existence of a single principle from which the symbolic forms and their respective functions derive, or whether Cassirer satisfactorily provides a complementary intersubjective validity for all of them. Setting this debate aside, but without delving into its details, the aim of this article is to investigate how the “modalities” of “representation” are present in the phenomenological development of knowledge, namely in perception, intuition, and concept. The central hypothesis suggests that the free activity of the spirit encompasses a plurality of symbolic forms that can be understood through a teleological thread.
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