Ernst Cassirer: the symbol as the basis of human culture. Symbolic forms of Cassirer Cassirer considered a specifically human form of activity

German philosopher and culturologist.

Since 1933 Ernst Cassirer was in exile in Europe, and since 1941 - in the United States.

Main labor Ernst Cassirer: Philosophy of symbolic forms / Philosophie der symbolischen Formen was published in 1923-1929 in 3 volumes.

Follow your teachers Hermann Cohen And Paul Natorp, Ernst Cassirer eliminated from the Kantian system, the concept of "thing in itself" as one of two - along with the subject of knowledge - factors that create the world of "experience". According to E. Cassirer, the material for building "experience" ("diversity") is created by thought itself. Accordingly, space and time cease to be contemplations (as in Immanuel Kant) and turn into concepts. Instead of Kant's two worlds, according to Cassirer, there is a single world - the "world of culture". The ideas of the mind from regulative become, like categories, constitutive, that is, principles that create the world. Cassirer calls them "symbolic functions" because they represent the highest values ​​associated with the "divine" in man.

Ernst Kassirer in his three-volume Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, criticizing I.G. Fichte And I. Kant"…States that human consciousness objectifies itself in diverse forms, transforming the chaos of impressions into a successive series of layers that act as forms, stages of objectification of consciousness. Cassirer saw these forms in language, myth and religion, art, history. They are not a reflection of objective reality, but creations of the spirit, in which a person creates his own world for the first time. The world of exact natural science also belongs to this world.

“The world of exact natural science turns out to be not the beginning, but rather the end of the process of objectification, the roots of which go back to other, earlier layers of shaping (Gestaltung).” E. Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Bd. III. Berlin, 1929, S. 522.

Cassirer seeks to prove and show that progress in natural science lies in the gradual liberation from the shackles of sensuality. Already Galileo And Kepler"they proceeded from 'principles' and 'hypotheses' which, as such, had no 'correspondence' with the sensuously real." Modern science completes the process of liberation from sensibility, from visibility, from resemblance to things. It "becomes systematic only because it, in the strict sense of the word, decides to become symbolic." E. Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Bd. III. Berlin, 1929, S. 527.

On the basis of this idealistic program, Cassirer builds his concept of the development of science as a consistent process of liberation from visualization ... "

Shtoff V.A., Modeling and philosophy, M.-L., "Science", 1966, p. 258.

Ernst Cassirer defined man as "an animal that creates symbols." Moreover, he argued: that the hedgehog creates a “hedgehog reality” around him, and the fly creates a “fly reality”.

Ernst Cassirer's ideas about "symbolic forms" influenced

CASSIRER(Cassirer) Ernst (1874-1945) - German philosopher and culturologist. He went through a complex creative evolution, nevertheless, he retained those theoretical and methodological principles that he learned and developed in the first period of his formation as a philosopher, in which he, starting with an apprenticeship with Cohen, was able to become one of the recognized leaders of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. From the problems associated with the philosophical study of scientific knowledge, he moved on to reflection on the problems of culture and other cognitive forms. I saw the key to understanding culture in the symbol. This stage of his work (since the 1920s) can be designated as the period of the "philosophy of symbolic forms" or as the period of the philosophy of culture. At this time, K. took and critically reworked a number of ideas (neo) Hegelianism (primarily associated with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit) and moved far enough (problematically, thematically and, in part, methodologically) from the orthodox version of Marburg neo-Kantianism. Consequently, this stage in the ideological evolution of K. can also be considered as a consistent “getting rid of Marburgism” (a kind of post-neo-Kantianism). In it, the influence on him of the circle of ideas of Platonism and the philosophy of Leibniz is noticeable. In the last years of his life, K.'s interests began to shift more and more clearly to the area philosophical anthropology: in 1939-1940 in Gothenburg he taught the corresponding course. In addition to the ideas of Scheler, which he radically challenged (as well as the ideas of Heidegger earlier), great importance during this period for K. had the personality and work of A. Schweitzer. Quite a lot of K. and the history of philosophy, however, in his works in this area is quite clearly visible emphasis on those aspects of the history of thought that are directly related to the area of ​​his direct methodological and cultural interests. K. studied in Berlin, Leipzig and Heidelberg, trained in Munich and Marburg. From 1896 - as-

Assistant Cohen. He published multi-volume collected works of Leibniz and Kant. He made a typical university career (only during the First World War he was in the civilian public service). In 1908-1919 he taught philosophy at Berlin (privat-docent), in 1919-1933 at Hamburg (from 1919 professor, from 1930 rector) universities. In 1929, together with Heidegger, he held a seminar in Davos, which resulted in an open polemic between them on the problem "what is a person?" During the emigration, which began with the coming to power of A. Hitler, K. taught in 1933-1935 at Oxford (Great Britain), in 1935-1941 at Gothenburg (Sweden), from 1941 at Yale, and from 1944 at Columbia (USA) universities . The main works of K.: "The Leibniz system in its scientific foundations" (1902); "The Concept of Substance and Function" (1910, in Russian translation it is also known as "Knowledge and Reality"); "The problem of knowledge in the philosophy and science of modern times" (vols. 1-3, 1906-1920, the fourth volume K. wrote already in exile); "The Life and Teachings of Kant" (1918); "Idea and Gestalt" (1921); "On A. Einstein's Theory of Relativity" (1921); "Language and Myth" (1925); "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" (vols. 1-3, the main work of the second period and all of K.'s work; vol. 1: "On the Phenomenology of Linguistic Form", 1923, vol. 2: "Mythical Thinking", 1925, vol. 3: "Phenomenology of knowledge", 1929); "Individuality and Cosmos in the Philosophy of the Renaissance" (1927); "Philosophy of Enlightenment" (1932); "Platonic Renaissance in England and the Cambridge School" (1932); "Determinism and indeterminism in modern physics" (1936); "On the Logic of Cultural Sciences" (1942); "Experience about Man. Introduction to the Philosophy of Human Culture" (1944, the work contains a sketch of Cassirer's concept of philosophical anthropology); "Rousseau. Kant. Goethe" (1945); The Myth of the State (published in 1946) and others. K. initially proceeded in his philosophy from the Kantian problem of "investigating the possibilities of experience," i. critical attitude and transcendental method, and in the spirit of the Marburg School made scientific (cognitive) knowledge the subject of his analysis. Kant's system is not the end for him, but only the beginning of the critique of reason. The focus of K. is the constructive-constituting role of reason, which considers the subject of its own research: "the subject There is what it turns out to be for us, it is the sum of available and possible modes of action. " Hence anti-substantialism and anti-ontologism (anti-metaphysical) K.: "... In the diversity and variability of natural phenomena, thinking has relatively firm reference points only because it itself approves them. In choosing these points of view, it is not at all bound in advance by phenomena; but it turns out to be his own business, for which he

responsible in the final analysis only to oneself". Hence the methodologism of K.: only the reflection of points of view allows us to see the possible as essential, makes us take it into account, and in relation to experience, determine which of the points of view (already grasped by it type connection) is applicable "to the given case" ("we enter the data of experience into our constructive scheme and thus obtain a picture of physical reality"). Thus, according to K., the cognizing subject always deals to some extent with the already logically formed "material ": "We can never oppose the concepts that we analyze, the data of experience as bare "facts"; after all, we are always dealing with a certain logical system connection of the empirical-given, which is measured on another similar system and discussed on the basis of it. "Consequently, everything that can be reasoned about is given in (by) knowledge, and philosophy, ultimately, is called upon to methodologically provide this (by) knowledge Accordingly, there is no "chasm" between being and consciousness, their gap is a consequence of "partial" points of view. The place of their unity is an object constructed and constituted in experience, which should be understood "not as a substance lying on the other side of any cognition, but as an object that is formed in progressive experience". The object, therefore, is not outside, but inside knowledge: "To know the content means to turn it into an object, separating it from the stage of only givenness and giving it a certain logical constancy and necessity. We, therefore, do not know "objects" - this would mean that they were previously and independently determined and given as items, A subject, creating within the uniform flow of the contents of experience certain delimitations and fixing permanent elements and connections. The concept of an object, taken in this sense, is no longer the last boundaries of knowledge but, on the contrary, its main means, using which it expresses and provides everything that has become its lasting property. "But it follows from this that the subject of science evolves, and as soon as it is inextricably linked with the subject, then it is necessary to recognize a certain "predetermined" subject to the sociocultural cognitive situation in which he is inscribed and his own point of view, coordinating him in interaction with the world (and, in turn, “predetermining” the object).Being is not substantial, but “relative”, in the sense that it there is a "derivative" in the emerging system of "relationships". modern science, therefore, should study not the substance, but the laws, connections and relationships, not the given, but the given, i.e. functional (correlation) dependencies. Thereby

the central concept in philosophy as the methodology of science is the concept of a function, thanks to which the present only acquires meaning. This concept allows K., on the one hand, to trace the progressive overcoming of empirical material in science, on the other hand, to show the connection between concepts and factualism, the influence of the latter on a change in its own form - the concept. From this point of view, K. makes his (re)construction of philosophical (and scientific) knowledge, trying to show that it is subject to the consistent overcoming of the “empirically given”, which has not been outlived since the time of Aristotle, in the works of Descartes, then “given contemplation”, t .e. visual, preserved by Descartes, in the works of Leibniz and, finally, the construction of a new concept of reason by Kant (although the latter restored the concept of contemplation). Thus, the line of development of (po)knowledge is the growth of its intellectualization, on the one hand, and deontologization (desubstantialization), on the other. Concepts in this process more and more become functions that carry out the connection of the manifold in unity through the establishment of relations between elements (ie, constructing objects through relations). Natural science, accordingly, is increasingly becoming not so much the physics of samples and models (schemes), but the physics of principles, as evidenced by Einstein's theory of relativity. In modern (po)knowledge, "the schematism of images has given way to the symbolism of principles." To conceive of an object means to attribute it to something other than itself. To know is to find the series in which the element fits and to constitute the principle of this series. Thinking, accordingly, is a series of mediation. In essence, K. introduces the concept of a sign-symbol as a constitutive-constituted mediator in acts of thinking. “Every theoretical definition and every theoretical mastery of being is connected with the fact that thought, instead of directly addressing reality, establishes a system of signs and uses them as representatives of objects. To the extent that this function of representation is carried out, being only begins become an ordered whole, some clearly visible structure. The liberation from "figurativeness" in science simultaneously leads to the pluralization of philosophy, reflecting science, since the "absolute reference points" disappear. Striving to describe the world from a "no one's" point of view, philosophy is always limited in this aspiration by the existing culture in which cognition is carried out and knowledge functions. Hence the intention of K. to expand the problematic field of methodological research, which led him to the need to limit the claims of the scientific mind. Objectivity of scientific

knowledge must be considered jointly and within the subjectivity of the world of culture. Thus, the criticism of reason develops in K. into a criticism of culture (otherwise, a criticism of reason is possible only as a criticism of culture). Initially, a kind of "pre-relationship" as the relationship of the spirit to culture. Scientific knowledge then appears only as a definite (albeit essential) specification of this relationship. Accordingly, then philosophy cannot be reduced to the methodology of natural science. Philosophy becomes the philosophy of culture, and the question "how is knowledge possible?" reformulated into the question "how is culture possible?". It is not the world “in itself” or given only in the methodological reflection of science that is the field of interest of philosophy; it is, ultimately, interested in the entire cultural space. According to K., "not things, but fantasies and prejudices torment a person," and only then thoughts and ideas are articulated. Consequently, "scientific knowledge directed at things" is only one of the sign-symbolic forms of the organization of culture. The logic of relations studied by science is a "case" of the logic of signs-symbols. It constitutes a special cultural (symbolic) form along with language, myth, as well as religion and art. "... In all of them, not so much a certain decor world, how much formation world, objective semantic interconnection and objective integrity of the view. "The existing (identified) forms of culture constitute the heterogeneity and modal pluralism of culture, which can be understood as a symbolically significant construction of the world. Cultural forms are not different ways in which one real being in itself is revealed spirit, but the paths that the spirit follows in its objectification, i.e. in its self-expression". These forms unite the "diversity" of culture into some integral formations that have internal unity. This unity is precisely set, according to K., as a (symbolic) function - a law that generates diversity, specific to each of the distinguished forms. Therefore none of them can be either reduced to or derived from the other: "The achievements of each of them must be evaluated by themselves, and not by the norms and goals of something else." All forms have autonomy, they are not steps " deployment" of the spirit, but rather "side by side". In this respect, each of them and all of them together is only a "background" that allows us to understand the specifics of each of them. They get their meaning and meaning from their own place in culture and in opposition-correlation with but in this way each of them (re)presents itself [to the best of its ability, expresses (presents), represents (represents), conceptualizes (reflects)

et)] and the whole integrity of culture. "Each separate reality of consciousness has certainty precisely because in it the integrity of consciousness is simultaneously juxtaposed and represented. Only in this representations and through it is possible what we call givenness and "cash" Moreover, each element of the variety, generated (predetermined) by a symbolic function within a form, can (re)present this form itself, since it (re)presents the very law (symbolic function) that gave rise to it. without ceasing to be such, it acquires the power to represent the universal for consciousness. "From the simple unity of the symbol and the object, the spirit, passing through their distinction-separation, comes to the representation of the object as a symbol. Between the intelligible and the phenomenal, a unity is found, grasped in the symbols, which constitute the generative principle of each of the forms and culture as a whole. A symbol is the only possibility of seeing in the diversity of a single (invariant of options), it is a synthetic "beginning" of culture, which allows you to meaningfully act in the world. Culture, according to K., "is" an "intersubjective world" ", a world that exists not only in "me", but is available to all subjects, in which they must all participate. However, "the form of this participation is completely different than in the physical world. Instead of referring to the same spatio-temporal cosmos of things, the subjects are located and united in general way actions". The latter, manifesting itself as standard-typical ways of exchange in society, is "sanctioned" by understanding at the level of organization of signs-symbols that define certain pictures-modalities of seeing the world. (practical) manifestation to see the constructive ideality of the spirit. It has an inherent (unchanging) ideal meaning, realized in the concrete content of the form that encompasses the latter. The symbol here is a functional correlate. Presented in the sensual, it represents the whole culture, which can and should be conceptualized in cognition. The three main ways of human life in culture (however, as well as religion and art), setting different visions of the world, give different ways of coordinating the general categories of thinking (time, space, connection-causality, essence and number), different directions(vectors) that a symbolic act can (and does) take. All of them are ways of objectifying the spirit, constituting the world, raising the phenomenal to the universal (each with its own claims), which can only be functionally (corrected)

relationally) relate (in philosophical reflection and in action) to each other in their self-sufficiency and difference. "In them the whole is not arises for the first time from parts, but, on the contrary, constitutes them and gives them an essential meaning. "A symbolic form of distance from the given world, its representation at the level of intuition of ordinary (co- and cognition) is for K. a language that introduces a distinction between grammatical forms, signs and meanings, stylistics. The intuitive picture of the world is completely is determined by linguistic oppositions.In language, the stream of perceptual images is constructed into a "world of objects" (and constituted as "named" things, properties, and relations), and the images themselves explicate their "symbolic loading." repeat those definitions and differences that are already given in the representation, but for the first time to assume definitions and differences as such, to single them out and make them accessible to knowledge. "The presentation of the" world "itself" (its expressive expression) is carried out in the form of a myth as a "dream world", but and as the world of spiritual substantiveization. Myth is such a self-sufficient objectification of the spirit that opposes the "profane" of ordinary (co- and cognition) knowledge as "sacred", and thereby sets a different "dimension" to the world. The whole of reality and action is divided "into mythically significant and mythically indifferent spheres, on what arouses mythical interest, and what leaves mythically indifferent". The world of the "sacred" is the world of religion. Similarly, for art we distinguish a special "world of art". The conceptualization of the world occurs primarily in the form At the same time, each form in its development contains the possibility of passing through the stages of expression, representation, conceptualization (it is possible at the levels of perception, contemplation, concepts - the self-development of culture is a movement towards the concept, towards the identification of the form-forming principle). Philosophy in this aspect is a self-reflection of culture as such. The latter, taken in its totality in a different aspect, "can be described as a process of progressive self-liberation of man." According to K.: "Language, art, religion, science constitute different phases this process. In all of them, a person develops and tests a new power, the power to build his own world, an ideal world. The philosophy of culture, thereby, “reincarnates” into philosophical anthropology, revealing the symbolic function as a creative-generating component in human activity, in which the invariance of the “internal form "(the concept of W. Humboldt, perceived by K.) correlates with the historical variability of style, and interprets a person as a" symbolic animal

noe "(animal symbolicum). The world of culture is not a material, but a personal world. "We live in the words of the language, in the images of poetry and visual arts , in the forms of music and images of religious performance and religious belief. And only in this we know each other." This is not the world of "distant" (mathematized natural science), but the world of "close", in which it is impossible to "renounce anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism", from the "masks" that a person wears, from his historicity "Culture becomes available to us as we enter into it, and this entry is not directly related to the present. Temporal differences, differences "earlier" and "later", are related here in the same way as spatial differences "here" and "there" are related in physics and astronomy. But this, according to K., is not the history of "how everything really happened" in the spirit of L. von Ranke and not the "astrology of history" of Spengler. It is history as a (personal) life in culture, by culture and for culture. Only that which enters into historical memory is alive due to the fact that we are able to include it in our inner world, and thereby transform (“the past, having become the center of attention of history, will receive a new meaning”). Understanding the past as the present, culture creates the future. The "monuments" that have come down to us become history only if "symbols" are seen in them. Personality, like everything human, is not given from the very beginning by "life", it is symbolically produced in history, it is the result of a creative effort to create oneself. Life is not immediate, it cannot be grasped as such, which the "philosophy of life" dreamed of, since it always manifests itself in the mediations of cultural (symbolic) forms. "Life as such is self-limiting and silent in this self-limitation. It has no other language than that which the spirit has given it." In culture, as a result of dismemberment, the indivisible whole itself, i.e. "life" is no longer present. Therefore, the whole can only be understood as the whole of all mediations, as their result. But then life should be understood not as a beginning, but as a "completion", as a "result" - the semantic organization of experience, the multidimensionality of the world of culture. Therefore, all existing definitions of a person - as rational, as guided by economic instinct (Marx), sexual attraction (Freud), "will to power" (Nietzsche), etc. - according to K., are insufficient due to their "partiality", what Scheler discovered, but he could not give a satisfactory definition. Man is a "symbolic animal," says K., he is, as it were, a "place" of intersection of symbolic forms. Only by "interpreting the symbols", deciphering their "hidden meaning", can a person "rediscover the life that originally gives rise to them", seeing "the one behind the diversity" and co-

referring to different visions (pictures) of the world: “Only through them and only in them do we see and have what we call “reality”: for the highest objective truth, which is only revealed to the spirit, is, ultimately, the form of its own action” . Mastering the symbols of culture, i.e. By creating, the subject acquires himself as a free agent: "Freedom is not a natural property of a person, in order to own it, you need to create it." The world and man are not given, but enigmatic, living in culture, we are doomed to creative effort - reality is always symbolic, and a symbol can be overcome only symbolically. (See also Neo-Kantianism, Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, Philosophical Anthropology.)

V.L. Abushenko, T.G. Rumyantsev

CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE(lat. imperativus - imperative) - basic concept ethics of Kant, fixing a universally valid moral prescription, having the force of an unconditional principle of human behavior. As in epistemology, in his practical philosophy Kant was looking for universal and necessary laws that determine the actions of people. Therefore, as the main question, he raised the question of whether such laws exist in relation to practical reason, and also, what is morality and how is it possible? Morality, but Kant, can and must be absolute, universal, generally valid, that is, have the form of law. The idea of ​​the law in itself, according to Kant, becomes the defining basis of the will, what we call morality, immanent in the personality itself, acting according to this idea, regardless of the result expected from it. Such a principle of will, which determines the morality of our actions, is, according to Kant, the general lawfulness of an act, and not some specific, specific law. This means that I must always act only in such a way that I can also desire the transformation of my maxim (i.e. my personal principle) into a universal law. Kant calls it I. or the rule, which characterizes the obligation and expresses the objective compulsion to act. The fact that the will itself is not always fully consistent with reason means that its definition in accordance with the law is coercion - the command of the mind to the subjective imperfection of the will, the formula of which is I. I. Kant divides everything into hypothetical (the execution of which associated with the need to do something as a means to achieve another goal) and K. - as actions that are objectively necessary in themselves, regardless of another goal. K.I. contains both the law and the necessity of the maxim - to be in conformity with this law; at

In this it does not contain in itself any condition by which it would be limited, except for the very universality of the law in general. According to Kant, there is only one such law: act only according to such a maxim, guided by which you can at the same time wish it to become a universal law. (Although Kant can find more than one of his formulations, for example, "act as if the maxim of your action through your will were to become a universal law of nature" or "act in such a way that you always relate to humanity and in your own person, and in the person of every other as well as an end and never treated it only as a means.") according to the philosopher himself, it is evidence of the purity and a priori nature of the law he discovered, the absence of empirical elements in it. K.I. Kant defines, thus, only the form of a moral act, saying nothing about its content, i.e. give a form in which there would be no reason for immoral acts. He proposed it in the form of K.I., answering in essence the question of how a person should act if he wants to join the truly moral. A person acts morally only when he makes duty to man and mankind a law of his actions, and in this sense nothing else, according to Kant, can simply be moral.

T.G. Rumyantsev

CAUSALITY (lat. causalis - causal, causa - reason), or causality, a concept used in the philosophy of traditional

CAUSALITY(lat. causalis - causal, causa - cause), or causality, a concept used in traditional philosophy to denote the necessary genetic connection of phenomena, of which one (cause) causes the other (effect). In this context, K. was interpreted as one of the forms of the universal connection of phenomena, as an internal connection between what already exists and what is generated by it, what is still becoming. It was assumed that this distinguishes K. from other forms of communication, which are characterized by the correlation of one phenomenon to another. Internal connection was considered as the essence of K., it was understood as an internal relationship inherent in things themselves. K. was supposed to be universal, because. according to the natural-scientific views of that time, there are no phenomena that would not have their own causes, just as there are no phenomena that would not have (would not give rise to) certain consequences. The connection between cause and effect was considered necessary: ​​if there is a cause and the corresponding conditions are present, then an effect inevitably arises. Subsequently (especially in the 20th century), the principle of K. underwent a radical re-

thinking. (Cm. Anti-Oedipus, Determinism, Neodeterminism, "Death of God".)

A.N. Levanyuk

QUALITY and QUANTITY are philosophical categories, first analyzed in this status by Aristotle in "Categories" and "Topeka"

QUALITY and QUANTITY- philosophical categories, first analyzed in this status by Aristotle in "Categories" and "Topeka". Aristotle attributed four possible contexts to quality (a predicament answering the question "what?"): the presence or absence of innate, initial abilities and characteristics; the presence of both transient and stable properties; properties and states inherent in things and phenomena in the process of their existence; the appearance of a thing or phenomenon. Quantity (the question "how much?") Aristotle attributed hypostases of "many" and "magnitude" in line with the main, from his point of view, mental function of this category: clarifying "equality" or "inequality". In the Cartesian tradition, these concepts were excluded from the register of the main philosophical categories. Kant, applying these concepts in the procedure for organizing and classifying the categories of pure reason (according to the "quantity" the judgments of pure reason were divided into single, particular and general; according to "quality" - into infinite, affirmative and negative), implicitly indicated the existence of a certain relationship and interdependence between them. Hegel, who interpreted quality as a certainty identical with being, and quantity as an external, indifferent to being certainty, understood them as certain stages of definition and self-determination of being. For Hegel, quality acted as a step in the transformation of being through existence to "being-for-itself", and quantity - as a step in the transition from pure quantity through a certain quantity to a degree. Explicating the content of the category "quality", Hegel introduces the concept of "certainty" as an empirical presentation of quality, "property" as a manifestation of quality in a particular system of interactions or relationships (and in this sense, a single quality can manifest itself in an infinite number of properties associated with a particular system reference, however, being internally conditioned by quality, properties open up the possibility of its cognition) and "boundaries" as a phenomenon of differentiation of quality from other qualities. Similarly, the content of the category "quantity" is refined by introducing the concepts of "value" (spatial extension and temporal duration of the system) and "number" as a non-empty set. Measure was the synthesis of quality and quantity in Hegel. Hegelianizing the Marxist paradigm of worldview, Engels transformed Hegel's teaching on the opposition of quality and quantity and their synthesis in measure, and gave this scheme a reading

and the status of the law of transition from quantitative to qualitative changes and vice versa". The emergence and development of a set of mathematicized empirical sciences based on the procedure for measuring the quantitative parameters of things and phenomena, on correlating and comparing these parameters with the qualitative characteristics of the elements of being, preserve and update the philosophical significance of the categories "quality " and "quantity".

A.A. Gritsanov

CYBERNETICS [ancient Greek. kybernetike (techne) - "the art of control"] is a branch of knowledge, the essence of which was formulated by Wiener as the science of "communication, control and control in machines and living organisms ..."

CYBERNETICS[ancient Greek. kybernetike (techne) - "the art of control"] - a branch of knowledge, the essence of which was formulated by Wiener as the science "of communication, control and control in machines and living organisms ..." in the book "Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in Animal and Machine (1948). In 1959, Academician A.N. Kolmogorov wrote: "... Now it is too late to argue about the degree of Wiener's success, when he ... in 1948 chose the name for the new science cybernetics. This name is quite established and is perceived as a new term, little connected with Greek etymology. Cybernetics is the study of systems of any nature capable of receiving, storing and processing information and using it for control and regulation. At the same time, cybernetics makes extensive use of the mathematical method and strives to obtain specific special results that make it possible both to analyze such systems (to restore their structure based on experience in handling them) and to synthesize them (calculate schemes of systems capable of performing specified actions). Because of this concrete character, cybernetics is by no means reducible to a philosophical discussion of the nature expediency in cars and philosophical analysis the range of phenomena studied by it ... ". K. arose at the junction of mathematics, logic, semiotics, physiology, biology, sociology (until then loosely related to each other), and from the beginning of the 1950s (along with physics, chemistry and biology) became have a significant impact on the development of world science.Tektology (general organizational science) Bogdanov (USSR, 1920s) preceded Wiener's K. (at least in its systemic part; moreover, Bogdanov used only qualitative methods in his works). of central importance is the concept of "information", which, according to Wiener, is the designation "... the content obtained from outside world in the process of our adaptation to it and the adaptation of our feelings to it ... ". That is, for Wiener, information is knowledge that has one value measure in relation to the external environment (semantics) and another value measure in relation to the knowledge accumulated by the recipient -

pits, the goals of knowledge (pragmatics). At the same time, Wiener interpreted any information, regardless of its specific content and purpose, as a choice between two or more values ​​endowed with known probabilities (the selective concept of information), which made it possible to start studying all processes using the unified apparatus of mathematical statistics developed by him (where does the beginning of the idea of ​​K. as a general theory of control and communication - the first foundation of K.). In K. "communication" is the processes of perception of information, its storage and transmission; "control" is the processes of processing perceived information into signals that correct the functioning of a cybernetic system. If the system is able to independently perceive and apply information about the results of its functioning, then such a system has means of feedback, and the processing of this kind of information into signals that correct the functioning of the system is called "control (regulation)" in K. The elements of a cybernetic system that carry out communication, control, or control are considered in K. exclusively as carriers (converters) of information. The concept of "amount of information" (amount of choice), introduced explicitly by the founder of information theory, C.E. Shannon, is of decisive importance in K. The amount of information (according to Wiener - negative entropy) is, like the amount of matter and the amount of energy, one of the fundamental characteristics of natural phenomena. The second basis of K. is Wiener's interpretation of it as a theory of organization, a theory of combating world Chaos, with an increase in entropy. Kolmogorov wrote: "... From the point of view of cybernetics, the specific material nature of the elements of a cybernetic system storing, transmitting or processing information, as well as the amount of energy expended on their work, are subordinate circumstances. In the process of evolution of living organisms, the finest mechanisms for storing a huge amount of information arose in insignificant amounts of memory (for example, the mechanism of heredity, which preserves in one cell the entire stock of species characteristics of an adult organism), as well as mechanisms capable of perceiving and processing a huge amount new information with a negligible expenditure of energy (for example, the mechanisms of memory and thinking in the cerebral cortex) ... ". The functioning element of the cybernetic system perceives information from the external environment and applies it to select adequate behavior. According to Wiener, information is never created, it is only transmitted and is accepted, but at the same time it is distorted by "noise" (interference) on the way to the object and inside it; and for this

The project may be lost. The fight against entropy is the fight against "noise", the distortion of information (acting as if the "semantic essence" of matter, which at the same time is identified with simultaneously interacting matter, energy, information and knowledge, which are all in mutual transitions from one to another in accordance with conservation laws; moreover, in these interactions, matter acts as a "carrier" of knowledge, and energy acts as a "carrier" of information). K. postulates the principle of unity of information and control (basically important for the analysis of the essence of the processes occurring in self-organizing technical and biosocial systems). Wiener believed that the control process in such systems is the process of processing by some central device the information received from sensor receptors (sources of primary information) and transferring it to where it will be perceived as a requirement to perform a certain action. Upon completion of this action, the sensor-receptors are made ready to transmit information about a change in the situation for the execution of the next management cycle. The main role in the movement of information through the system and this cyclic control algorithm belongs to the content of information transmitted by sensor-receptors and the central device. In this regard, Kolmogorov wrote that "...regulatory mechanisms of the second order, which accumulate information about the results of the activity of one or another control or regulatory mechanism of the first order, are able to use this information to purposefully change the structure and mode of action of this first-order mechanism. Classical an example of such second-order regulation is the mechanism for the production of conditioned reflexes.The system of already established, developed reflexes, i.e. connections between external stimuli and reactions of the body, is dominated by the mechanism for the production of new reflexes.The input signals for this mechanism are "reinforcements" received in if the reaction corresponds to the needs of the body, and "inhibition" - in case of discrepancy ... ". The category "management" is the basic category K. All other categories are subordinated (coordinated) by this category. (It should be noted that there is an approach to control as a science that studies methods of creating, revealing the structure, and identically transforming algorithms that describe control processes that take place in reality.) The meaning of the category "control" in control can be revealed only through more general categories structure and function, causality and expediency and other "non-internal" categories of K. In the general case, control in cybernetic

in a logical system is a cycle performed in the circuit of information exchanges, consisting of a control element, channels of direct and feedback. Control actions are control information (information about further appropriate actions of the control object). Information about the state of an object and other data that comes from the object to the control is state information. In fact, control is a set of the process of collecting, processing, converting and transmitting information for the purposeful functioning of any cybernetic system, which must carry out such processes and include an executor, an energy storage source, a signal source and receiver, a system for transmitting signals from a source to an executor. . In the limiting state, the cybernetic system is completely indeterminate with a maximum of entropy. During the functioning of the system, when it consumes energy, it consumes information that reduces diversity (uncertainty) and makes the system's behavior predictable; entropy decreases. The flow of information makes it possible to control cybernetic systems. Information reduces diversity, and this is the main method of regulation. The presence in the cybernetic system of interference in the channels of information exchanges ("noise") leads to an increase in diversity (entropy), without increasing the content of information. If the entropy of a cybernetic system increases, then the system degrades. To counteract degradation, negentropy (additional information) is introduced into the cybernetic system at the expense of energy costs. the natural state of any system that has the ability to change its stochastic characteristics is the growth of entropy (loss of information). Conditions for the feasibility of control: 1) determinism (presence of causal relationships between components) of the system; 2) system dynamism; 3) the presence of a control parameter, by the influence of which it is possible to change the direction of transformations; 4) amplification property (the ability of the system to undergo significant space-time and/or energy transformations under the influence of small changes in the control parameter). Because systems have an extension in space, then D) the influence of the control parameter and the transformation of the system are separated in time; 2) the control parameter and the control object have a different physical nature; 3) control subsystems store, transform and transfer control information. The content of the management process is characterized by the goal of management - homeostasis - balancing

we use a system with a transforming external environment, effective counteraction to the destructive effects of the external environment in order to stabilize the vital parameters of a cybernetic system. Cybernetic systems are considered effective if they use the minimum amount of information to achieve the same goals. All other systems of a similar purpose are information-redundant. There is a direct connection between control and energy conversion: according to G.N. Alekseev, "... control comes down to changing the flow of energy of one kind or another in various systems ... Active human impact on nature, i.e. labor, can be considered how to manage energy flows external nature, and nature itself serves as a source of energy for this, and labor activity is performed only when more energy is obtained than is expended ... ". P.G. Kuznetsov claims that" such an exchange mechanism is possible if there is a a logical control device that operates according to the following program: 1) "remembers" the physical sequence of muscle movements; 2) "calculates" the total amount of energy costs for them; 3) "remembers" the sequence of the results of impact on nature; 4) "calculates" the efficiency of the labor process; 5) performs a "logical" operation: it accepts the program of the sequence of movements if the efficiency is above average, and rejects it if it is below...". .. the action of any device that is actively searching for the optimal control mode is described by a similar program and has the ultimate goal of saving energy consumption. Hence, the social activity of people in the process of production is an unequal exchange of energy with nature, as a result of which the energy budget of society should increase(or, accordingly, negentropy)..." According to L. Brillouin, the main criterion for cybernetic systems is their energy-entropy efficiency, i.e. the ratio of the increase in negentropy (acquired information) to the increase in entropy in external systems (energy sources). At the stage of development of cybernetic science, in the works on the creation of artificial intelligence (cybernetic intelligence), which took place as a scientific direction, a spectrum of the most diverse views on the possibility of constructing reasoning systems based on knowledge is revealed. note that only functions are modeled in K.

brain, amenable to logical processing (i.e., associated with the receipt, processing and issuance of information). All the rest of the most diverse functions of the human brain remain outside the scope of C. For example, many concepts of C. are anthropomorphic: the concepts of goal, choice, decision, conditioned reflex, memory, etc. are transferred to cybernetic systems (legally or not). However, "... there are such human functions that cannot be performed by computers. And this is due not to the limitations of their capabilities, but to the fact that such feelings as respect, understanding and love are simply not technical problems ... "(J. Weisenbaum). It is generally recognized that the only subject of thinking so far is a person armed with all the means that he has at a given level of his development. These tools include cybernetic machines in which the results of human labor are materialized. Man will transfer to the machine only some of the functions performed by him in the process of thinking. In the argument against the possibility of creating artificial intelligence (cybernetic mind), there is actually an indication of the spectrum of thinking actions that no cybernetic system is capable of performing. Man is not only a natural being, his main characteristics are the product of social, and not purely biological development. Therefore, human thinking cannot develop in isolation, for this it is necessary that a person be included in society. First, for the emergence of thinking, the presence of language is necessary, which is possible only in society. Secondly, from a cybernetic point of view, the "reasonableness" of a system is determined by the amount of information processed in it, so a system in an information-poor environment cannot become sufficiently "reasonable". In the direction of artificial intelligence (cybernetic mind), most researchers understand intelligence as the range of abilities of any cybernetic system to achieve one of the many possible goals in a variety of different environments. Knowledge in K. is differentiated from intelligence in such a way that knowledge is useful information accumulated and stored by a cybernetic system in the course of its activity, and intelligence is the defining ability of a cybernetic system to predict the states of external environments in association with the ability to transform any prediction into an adequate reaction leading to to a given goal. The logical machine differs from the human brain in that it cannot have several mutually exclusive programs of activity at once. The human brain always has them, which is why it is a "battlefield among the saints" or "the ashes of contradictions among

cybernetic devices show themselves better, the more accuracy, the task requires algorithmization, their origin from digital computers avenges itself. If the situation becomes too complicated, and the number of new factors increases too much, then the robot is lost. (approximate solution) and he sometimes succeeds, but the robot does not know how. It must take everything into account accurately and clearly, and if this is not possible, then it loses to a person. However, in a dangerous situation, the robot does not "lose its head", since it does not feel fear and the threat of death is indifferent to him.In such situations, self-control can compensate for the lack of intuition.The robot tries to master the situation until the last moment, even when he sees that he has lost.Although from the point of view of people this is irrational, from the point of view of the robot it is only logical , because he decided so. Robots have few creative abilities, since they are inseparable from intuition (Lem). The implementation of truly artificial intelligence will be possible if knowledge-based systems begin to meaningfully (in human terms) process knowledge packages built for a set of problems, in principle, inaccessible to human thinking. When solving a range of problems that arise in the process of building effective forms and means of information exchange, it becomes necessary to solve the problem of unambiguous objectification of knowledge - placing fragments of knowledge in integrated packages in which they can move through the channels of information exchange. Such a package can be a phrase of any language, a book , image, hypertext, etc. For all types of packaging, the common thing is that in any conditions they must maintain the "semantic security" of the hosted knowledge, which, in addition, must be declarative and capable of deriving knowledge of increased generality from the packed relationship-relationship structures and concepts. The recipient and sender of such packages must apply single system the rules of their objectification and perception - the formalism of the objectification of knowledge (a formalism natural to a person is oral speech and writing). Not all knowledge can be expressed in linguistic form, but knowledge that is inexpressible in linguistic constructions is not included in the processes of information exchanges. With the help of natural language as one of the forms of objectification of knowledge, human communication is carried out, while the same fragment of knowledge is given various verbal and/or textual forms. In the areas of scientific knowledge, linguistic decomposers are built (narrowing of the natural language; in this case, it is necessary to highlight the language of mathematics

maths as the basis for exposition of knowledge systems in natural sciences; philosophy, physics, etc. have their own language). The use of linguistic reducers significantly increases the reliability of information exchange processes while reducing the likelihood of incorrect interpretation of the transmitted information. The defining advantages of linguistic reducers are the removal of the semantic ambiguity of natural language, which introduces semantic "noise" into the channels of information exchange, and the possibility of building standardized packages of knowledge fragments. The generalizing nature of cybernetic ideas and methods, the task of substantiating such initial concepts of cybernetic science as "information", "control", " Feedback"and others, require access to a broader, philosophical field of knowledge. K., whose achievements are of exceptional importance for the study of cognitive processes, in its essence and content is actually included in modern theory knowledge. The study of the methodological and epistemological aspects of K. contributes to the solution of philosophical problems of understanding simple and complex, quantity and quality, necessity and chance, possibility and reality, discontinuity and continuity, part and whole. The philosophical result of K. is of great importance in the fact that a number of functions of thinking, previously considered the exclusive prerogative of the living human brain, turned out to be reproducible in cybernetic devices. (See also Virtual Reality, Wiener.)

Consideration of the concept of "symbol" in the works of E. Cassirer "Experience about Man"

E. Cassirer starts from the concept of man as an active being, producing certain meanings, symbols. The most important characteristic of a person is activity; it is labor that defines the realm of the human. Language, myth, science, history make up the space of his activity, these are some tools that are functionally used by a person to generate a symbol.

Ernst Cassirer's Essay on Man became one of the most widely read philosophical works of its time, remaining for several decades the main textbook on philosophical anthropology and a kind of philosophical bestseller. Why did this happen? Exploring the question "how is culture possible?", in the framework of his theory of symbolic forms, Cassirer turns to the problems of philosophical anthropology. Cassirer puts the actual concept of a symbol at the center of his research, seeing in it the root and main problem of human philosophy. The concept of "symbol" gradually entered the space of philosophy. Almost every major thinker of the past, one way or another, turned to the categories of the symbol and the symbolic, but not like Cassirer. Moreover, in most cases, the concept of a symbol was interpreted in a different way. In my opinion, this is due to the extreme breadth and ambiguity of this category. The symbol is flexible, mobile, like the story itself. In this regard, each era required a rethinking of this concept. At various times, the symbol dominated myth, art, and technology. Throughout history, quite different degrees of this concept have been emphasized in philosophical thought. The symbol constantly required and requires rethinking.

Thus, the work of E. Cassirer is an attempt to overcome the crisis of neo-Kantianism by bringing it into a new, culturological problem field.

E. Cassirer: culture as the production of symbols

In the history of philosophy, people tried to understand with the help of psychological introspection. E. Cassirer proposed an alternative method in the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. He proceeds from the premise that if there is any definition of the nature or "essence" of man, then this definition can only be understood as functional, not substantial.

The hallmark of a person is his activity. "Philosophy of man", therefore, is such a philosophy that should clarify for us the fundamental structures of each of the types of human activity and at the same time make it possible to understand it as an organic chain. Language, art, myth, religion are not accidental, isolated creations, they are connected by common ties. As for the philosophy of culture, Cassirer begins it with the assertion that the world of human culture is not just an accumulation of vague and scattered facts.

From an empirical or historical point of view, it seems that it is enough to collect the facts of human culture in order to unravel the phenomenon itself. Cassirer prefers the thesis of the fragmentation of human culture, its initial heterogeneity.

Cassirer derives the phenomenon of culture from the fact of the imperfection of the biological nature of man. Man has lost his original nature. We cannot say why this happened. Scientists talk about the influence of cosmic radiation or radioactivity, deposits of radioactive ores that caused mutations in the mechanism of heredity. A similar regression - the extinction, weakening or loss of certain instincts - is not, generally speaking, absolutely unknown to the natural world.

Sociality, cultural standards dictate to a person other than the biological program, patterns of behavior. Instincts in a person are weakened, superseded by purely human needs and motives, in other words, "cultivated". Is the dulling of instincts really a product of historical development? Recent research refutes this conclusion. It turns out that the weak expression of instincts is not at all caused by the development of sociality. There is no direct link here.

Man has always and regardless of culture possessed "muffled" undeveloped instincts. The species as a whole had only the beginnings of an unconscious natural orientation that helps to listen to the voice of the earth. The idea that man is ill-equipped with instincts, that his forms of behavior are painfully arbitrary, has had a tremendous influence on theoretical thought. Philosophical anthropologists of the 20th century drew attention to the well-known "insufficiency" of the human being, to some features of its biological nature.

The concept of a symbolic, playful adaptation to the natural world was developed in the works of E. Cassirer. We also note that the socio-cultural orientation of philosophy has sharpened interest in the category of a symbol, symbolic. The symbolic has become a fundamental concept modern philosophy along with such as science, myth, telos, language, subject, etc.

Cassirer outlines approaches to a holistic view of human existence as flowing in symbolic forms. He turns to the works of the biologist I. Yukskyl, a consistent supporter of vitalism. The scientist views life as an autonomous entity. Each biological species, Yukskyl developed his concept, lives in a special world, inaccessible to all other species. So man comprehended the world according to his own standards.

Cassirer notes the symbolic way of communication with the world in humans, which is different from the sign signaling systems inherent in animals. Signals are part of the physical world, while symbols, being deprived, according to the author, of natural or substantial existence, have, above all, a functional value. Animals are limited by the world of their sensory perceptions, which reduces their actions to direct reactions to external stimuli. Therefore, animals are not able to form the idea of ​​the possible. On the other hand, for the superhuman intellect or for the divine spirit, as Cassirer notes, there is no difference between reality and possibility: everything mental becomes reality for him. And only in the human intellect is there both reality and possibility.

For primitive thinking, Cassirer believes, it is very difficult to distinguish between the spheres of being and meaning, they are constantly mixed, as a result of which the symbol is endowed with magical or physical power. However, in the course of the further development of culture, the relationship between things and symbols becomes clearer, just as the relationship between possibility and reality becomes clearer. On the other hand, whenever there are obstacles in the way of symbolic thinking, the distinction between reality and possibility also ceases to be clearly perceived.

That's where, it turns out, was born social program! Initially, it arose from nature itself, from an attempt to survive, imitating animals that are more rooted in their natural environment. Then a special system began to take shape in a person. He became the creator and creator of symbols. They reflected an attempt to consolidate the various standards of behavior suggested by other living beings.

Thus, we have every reason to consider man an "incomplete animal." It was not at all through the inheritance of acquired traits that he broke away from the animal kingdom. For anthropology, the mind and everything that occupies it belongs to the field of culture. Culture is not genetically inherited. From the above reasoning, a logical conclusion follows: the secret of cultural genesis is rooted in the formation of man as a symbolic animal.

Studied at the University of Berlin. He also attended lectures at the universities of Leipzig, Heidelberg, Munich, Marburg. Professor (-) and rector (-) of the University of Hamburg. Since 1933, Cassirer has been in exile: in Oxford (Great Britain), in - in Gothenburg (Sweden), since 1941 - in the USA. In -1944 he taught at Yale University, then at Columbia University.

Scientific activity

At the beginning of his activity he was engaged in philosophical problems of natural science. Developed a theory of concepts, or "functions". After 1920, he created an original philosophy of culture. Following G. Cohen and P. Natorp, Cassirer eliminated from the Kantian system the concept of “thing in itself” as one of the two (along with the subject of knowledge) factors that create the world of “experience”. According to Cassirer, the material for building "experience" ("diversity") is created by thought itself. Accordingly, space and time cease to be intuitions (as in Kant) and turn into concepts. Instead of Kant's two worlds, according to Cassirer, there is a single world - the "world of culture". The ideas of the mind from regulative become, like categories, constitutive, that is, principles that create the world. Cassirer calls them "symbolic functions" because they represent the highest values ​​associated with the "divine" in man. Various spheres of culture, called by Cassirer "symbolic forms" (language, myth, religion, art, science), are considered as independent formations, not reducible to each other. Cassirer's philosophy of culture also defines his idealistic understanding of man as "an animal that creates symbols."

Cassirer's ideas, above all his doctrine of "symbolic forms", had a decisive influence on research on the cultural history of the Marburg school.

Author of historical and philosophical works on G. Leibniz ( "Leibniz" System in seinen wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen", ), I. Kant ("Kants Leben und Lehre" , ), R. Descartes, philosophy of the Renaissance ( "Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance", ), Enlightenment ( "Die Philosophie der Aufklärung", ), works about Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, Kleist.

Compositions

• Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, Bd 1-4, V., 1906-1957;
• Freiheit und Form, V., 1916; Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Bd 1-3, V., 1923-1929;
• An essay on man. An introduction to a philosophy of human culture. New Haven - L., ;
• The myth of the state, London, 1946;
• Zur modernen Physik, Oxford, 1957;

Russian bibliography

Books

• Cassirer, E. Knowledge and reality. - St. Petersburg, 1912.
• Cassirer, E. Einstein's theory of relativity. - Pg., 1922.
• Cassirer, E. Reasoning about man: An attempt to create a philosophy of man. culture / Per. for cargo. L. Ramishvili. - Tbilisi: Ganatleba, 1983.
• Cassirer, E. Cognition and reality: The concept of substance and the concept of function / Per. with him. B. Stolpner, P. Yushkevich. - St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 1996.
• Cassirer, E. Life and teachings of Kant / Per. with him. M. I. Levit. - St. Petersburg: University book, 1998. - ISBN 5-7914-0019-5
• Cassirer, E. Favorites. Experience about a person. - M.: Gardarika, 1998.
• Cassirer, E. Selected: Individual and space / Per. A. N. Malinkina. - M.-SPb.: University book, 2000. ISBN 5-323-00017-1
• Cassirer, E. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: In 3 vols. / Per. with him. S. A. Romashko. - M.-SPb.: University book, 2002. - ISBN 5-94483-003-4 (volume 2), ISBN 5-94396-025-2 (volume 3) - Volume 1. Language, Volume 2. Mythological thinking
• Cassirer, E. Philosophy of Enlightenment / Per. with him. V. L. Makhlin. - M.: ROSSPEN, 2004. - 400 s - (Book of Light). - ISBN 5-8243-0499-8

Articles

• Cassirer, E. Experience about a person / Per. A. Muravyova // The problem of man in Western philosophy. - M., 1988. - S. 3-30.
• Cassirer, E. Naturalistic and humanistic substantiation of the philosophy of culture // Comprehension of culture. Yearbook, vol. 7. - M., 1998.
• Cassirer, E. Natural science concepts and concepts of culture / Foreword. to the publication of I. N. Zaripova // Questions of Philosophy. - 1995. - No. 8. - S. 157-173.
• Cassirer, E. The concept of symbolic form in the structure of the spirit // Culturology XX century. - 1998. - No. 11. - S. 37-66.

Literature

Books

• Svasyan, K. A. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms by E. Cassirer: Critical Analysis / Academy of Sciences of the ArmSSR, Institute of Philosophy and Law. - Yerevan: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the ArmSSR, 1989.
• Kravchenko, A. A. The logic of the humanities E. Cassirer. Cassirer and Goethe. - M.: Dialog-MGU, 1999.
• M. E. Soboleva. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms by E. Cassirer: Genesis. Basic concepts. Context. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of St. Petersburg. un-ta, 2001.
• Weinmeister, A. V. Symbolic interpretation of culture in the concept of E. Cassirer and A. F. Losev: dis. … cand. philosophy Sciences. - St. Petersburg, 2006.
• Demidova, M. V."Animal symbolicum" by E. Cassirer and scientific knowledge XX century / Ed. V. A. Friaufa. - Saratov: Publishing House of Saratov University, 2007.

Articles

• Svasyan, K. A. Philosophy of Culture E. Cassirer (Origins, Originality, Criticism) // Questions of Philosophy. - 1984. - No. 9. - S. 95-103.
• Focht, B. A. The concept of symbolic form and the problem of meaning in the philosophy of language by E. Cassirer // Questions of Philosophy. - 1998. - No. 9. - S. 150-174.
• Soboleva, M. E. System and Method in the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms by E. Cassirer // Questions of Philosophy. - 2000. - No. 2. - S. 87-100.
• Bezlepkin N. I., Chupakhina N. A. A. F. Losev and E. Cassirer: linguo-philosophical parallels // Veche. Almanac of Russian Philosophy and Culture. Issue 16. - St. Petersburg, 2004. - S. 94-104.
• Shiyan, A. Phenomenology or Neo-Kantianism: E. Cassirer's Philosophy of Consciousness // Topos. - 2006. - No. 1.

Links

• Cassirer E. The concept of substance and function (rar-archive)
• Cassirer Ernst at the Science Library
• Ernst Cassirer at the Yakov Krotov Library

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See what "Cassirer Ernst" is in other dictionaries:

Ernst Cassirer Date of birth: July 28, 1874 (1874 07 28) Place of birth: Breslau ... Wikipedia

- (1874 1945) German social scientist. The problems of the philosophy of linguistics, mythological thinking, art, philosophy of history and politics are at the center of his scientific work. Cassirer was one of the first to draw attention to the fact that European ideals ... ... Political science. Dictionary.

CASSIRER ERNST- (Cassirer, 1874 1945) German. philosopher, representative of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. At first he dealt with the philosophical problems of mathematics and natural science, in the 1920s. creates philosophical concept culture, which is a kind of philosophical ... ... Great Psychological Encyclopedia

- (Cassirer) (1874 1945), German philosopher, representative of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. Since 1933 in exile, since 1941 in the USA. In the philosophy of culture, he put forward the doctrine of language, myth, science and art as specific "symbolic forms". Works on ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Cassirer Ernst- Ernst Cassirer and the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms Substance and Function Cassirer (1874 1945) was born into a wealthy Jewish family. He studied philosophy at Marburg as a student of Cohen and Natorp. From 1906 to 1919 teaches first in Berlin, and ... ... Western philosophy from origins to the present day

Cassirer Ernst (July 28, 1874, Breslau, now Wroclaw, - April 13, 1945, Princeton, New York), German idealist philosopher, representative of the Marburg school, neo-Kantianism. Professor (1919–33) and rector (1930–33) of the University of Hamburg. Since 1933… … Great Soviet Encyclopedia

- (Cassirer, Ernst) (1874 1945), German philosopher and historian. Born in Breslau in Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) on July 28, 1874. Having received his primary education in his native city, in 1892 he entered the University of Berlin. In accordance with the European ... ... Collier Encyclopedia

Ernst Cassirer (Ernst Cassirer, July 28, 1874, Breslau, now Wroclaw - April 13, 1945, Princeton, New Jersey, USA) - German philosopher and culturologist, representative of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism.

Born in the family of a merchant of Jewish origin. From 1892 he studied at the University of Berlin. He also attended lectures at the universities of Leipzig, Heidelberg, Munich, Marburg. Professor (1919-1933) and rector (1930-1933) of the University of Hamburg. Since 1933, Cassirer was in exile: in Oxford (Great Britain), in 1935-1941 in Gothenburg (Sweden), since 1941 - in the USA. In 1941-1944 he taught at Yale University, then at Columbia University.

His main work was The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923-1929). This outstanding philosophical work is a series of interrelated historical and systematic studies on language, myth, religion and scientific knowledge that continue and develop the main ideas of Cassirer's previous works. The general concept for him is no longer “knowledge”, but “spirit”, identified with “spiritual culture” and “culture” as a whole, as opposed to “nature”. Cassirer finds the means by which any formation of the spirit takes place in the sign, symbol, or “symbolic form”. In the "symbolic function", Cassirer believes, the very essence of human consciousness is revealed - its ability to exist through the synthesis of opposites.

Books (8)

The Life and Teachings of Kant

The volume of the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874 - 1945) includes his works on Kant - "The Life and Teachings of Kant", "Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Notes on the Interpretation of Kant by Martin Heidegger, as well as studies by D. Veren and K. Schrag on Cassirer.

This book opens a new series that will feature prominent thinkers of the 20th century.

Favorites. Individual and space

The proposed volume of a prominent German neo-Kantian philosopher, a perceptive historian, culturologist, a subtle observer of the development of language in its deepest connection with the symbolic forms of concepts contains two books: “The Individual and the Cosmos in the Philosophy of the Renaissance” and “The Essence and Action of the Symbolic Concept”.

These two books, as it were, continue the union "concluded between philosophy and philology" in the Renaissance.

Experience about a person

It is generally recognized that self-knowledge is the highest goal of philosophical research. In any dispute between different philosophical schools this goal remains unchanged and unshakable - that means that thought has an Archimedean fulcrum, a stable and immovable center.

Cognition and reality

E. Cassirer (1874-1945) - German neo-Kantian philosopher. His main work was The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923-1929). Cassirer sees the meaning of the historical process in the "self-liberation of man", while the task of the philosophy of culture is in identifying invariant structures that remain unchanged in the course of historical development.

Einstein's theory of relativity

Einstein's Theory of Relativity explores philosophical problems associated with Einstein's theory of relativity.

In the author's opinion, the tasks that this theory posed to the general criticism of cognition can be solved by a long-term joint work of physicists and philosophers. Therefore, E. Cassirer aims to provoke a discussion and give it a certain methodological direction, in order to eventually come to an understanding on those issues in which the opinions of physicists and philosophers differ.

Philosophy of symbolic forms. Volume 1. Language

Philosophy of symbolic forms. Volume 2. Mythological thinking

Philosophical speculation begins with the concept of being. When it is constituted as such, when, in spite of the diversity and variety of the existing, the awareness of the unity of the existing awakens, for the first time there arises a specifically philosophical orientation of the worldview.

However, for a long time it remains in the circle of existence, striving to leave and overcome it. From a separate, special, limited being, everything else is genetically derived and "explained".

Philosophy of symbolic forms. Volume 3. Phenomenology of knowledge

E. Cassirer (1874-1945) is a German neo-Kantian philosopher. His main work is The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923-1929). This outstanding philosophical work is a series of interrelated historical and systematic studies on language, myth, religion and scientific knowledge that continue and develop the main ideas of Cassirer's previous works.

The general concept for him is no longer “knowledge”, but “spirit”, identified with “spiritual culture” and “culture” as a whole, as opposed to “nature”. Cassirer finds the means by which any formation of the spirit takes place in the sign, symbol, or “symbolic form”. In the "symbolic function", Cassirer believes, the very essence of human consciousness is revealed - its ability to exist through the synthesis of opposites.

Cassirer sees the meaning of the historical process in the "self-liberation of man", while the task of the philosophy of culture is in identifying invariant structures that remain unchanged in the course of historical development.