Ernst Cassirer

Lore & Background

Cassirer was born in Breslau, Silesia (modern-day southwest Poland) into a Jewish family. He studied at several German universities, including Berlin, Leipzig, Heidelberg, and Munich, before completing his doctorate at the University of Marburg under Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp. His dissertation analyzed René Descartes's critique of mathematical and scientific knowledge. After working as a Privatdozent in Berlin, he was elected in 1919 to the philosophy chair at the newly founded University of Hamburg, where he lectured until 1933. Because he was Jewish, Cassirer fled Nazi Germany on March 12, 1933, one week after the March 1933 German federal election. He taught at the University of Oxford, then at the University of Gothenburg, and later became a visiting professor at Yale University in 1941. In 1943 he moved to Columbia University, where he lectured until his death from a heart attack in New York City in April 1945.

Reader's Guide

Cassirer's significance lies in his development of a philosophy of symbolic forms, which argued that humans are 'symbolic animals' who create a universe of symbolic meanings beyond instinct and direct sensory perception. His work spanned the history of science, philosophy of science, and cultural sciences, and he was a staunch defender of the moral idealism of the Enlightenment and liberal democracy at a time when fascism was rising. His last work, *The Myth of the State* (published posthumously in 1946), attempted to understand the intellectual origins of Nazi Germany, discussing the opposition of logos and mythos and the surrender of rational logic to fascist mythology. Although his work received a mixed reception shortly after his death, more recent scholarship has remarked upon his role as a defender of Enlightenment ideals. Within the international Jewish community, his work has been seen as part of a long tradition of ethical philosophy.

Did You Know?

• Cassirer's son, Heinz Cassirer, was also a Kantian scholar.
• He was a member of a prominent family that included neurologist Richard Cassirer, publisher Bruno Cassirer, and art dealer Paul Cassirer.
• Cassirer participated in a historically significant debate with Martin Heidegger in Davos in 1929.
• He died of a heart attack in New York City in April 1945, and his funeral was conducted by the young rabbi Arthur Hertzberg.