Philosophy of Being and Knowledge

Philosophy of Language

Neo-Kantianism: Ernst Cassirer

In the 1860s, a philosophical school emerged with the rallying cry "Back to Kant," advocating a return to the ideas and methods of Immanuel Kant. This movement, known as neo-Kantianism, gained immense popularity in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. Given that Kant’s central concern was knowledge, neo-Kantians devoted significant attention to this issue. Neo-Kantianism is represented by two main schools: the Marburg and Baden schools. While delving deeply into the nature of knowledge, neo-Kantians explored its various aspects, including language. The most significant contribution to the philosophy of language from the neo-Kantian perspective came from Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), a representative of the Marburg school. Cassirer viewed language not as a separate substance but as a fundamental aspect of symbolic reality. His views were grounded in Kant’s philosophy, which posited that humans do not merely perceive objects but perceive them as objects; that is, there are no clearly defined objects to be known, but rather a chaotic reality upon which the human mind imposes its categories, thereby transforming it into objects. Thus, objects do not exist independently but come into being only when the human mind organizes the chaotic reality. These Kantian ideas had a profound influence on subsequent philosophical thought but required further clarification. Specifically, Kant’s followers noted that he did not provide a clear explanation of how the mind constitutes the world as objects. Addressing this issue became the task of the neo-Kantians.

Cassirer proposed his philosophical system to resolve this problem. He argued that between the mind and reality, there is a third element that enables their connection: symbolic reality. Humans can perceive only an organized world, and it becomes organized only through symbols. Everything that humans perceive and know is a symbol: a word symbolizes what it denotes; a photograph symbolizes the person it depicts; a natural law symbolizes a natural phenomenon; clothing symbolizes status. Humans live in a world of symbols, and it is through their ability to create symbols that they come to understand the world. The ability to create symbols distinguishes humans from animals, which remain immersed in the chaos of existence. Symbolic reality encompasses everything in which humans live: myth, culture, science, language, and more. The creation of symbolic reality begins with language. By naming something with a word, people create a symbol, of which the object is a product. For Cassirer, the answer to the question of what an object is is clear: an object is what is defined by a single word. Thus, where there is a word, there is an object; where there is no word, there is no object. Language constitutes the world.

Cassirer also devoted much attention to the analysis of myth and science. Myth, in his view, represents the overlay of a symbol onto reality, and thus myth is closely tied to the world it describes. Science, on the other hand, is a system of symbols that is entirely detached from reality. It operates exclusively with symbols and does not reach reality. Natural laws are connected only to symbols. The law of universal gravitation describes certain relations between phenomena, regardless of the phenomena themselves; that is, gravitation is indifferent to which phenomenon is analyzed: the gravitational influence of the Earth on the Moon or the gravitational influence of the Sun on Mercury. In all cases, scientists use the same terms. This means that science is a form of knowledge that operates solely within symbolic reality.