Ernst Cassirer

The Last Philosopher of Culture

Edward Skidelsky

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780691152356
  9780691131344
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400828944
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosopher Biographies

This is the first English-language intellectual biography of the German-Jewish philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), a leading figure on the Weimar intellectual scene and one of the last and finest representatives of the liberal-idealist tradition. Edward Skidelsky traces the development of Cassirer's thought in its historical and intellectual setting. He presents Cassirer, the author of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, as a defender of the liberal ideal of culture in an increasingly fragmented world, and as someone who grappled with the opposing forces of scientific positivism and romantic vitalism. Cassirer's work can be seen, Skidelsky argues, as offering a potential resolution to the ongoing conflict between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities--and between the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy. The first comprehensive study of Cassirer in English in two decades, this book will be of great interest to analytic and continental philosophers, intellectual historians, political and cultural theorists, and historians of twentieth-century Germany.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One Prologue: The Alienation of Reason
• Two The Marburg School
• Three The New Logic
• Four Between Irony and Tragedy
• Five The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms
• Six Logical Positivism
• Seven The Philosophy of Life
• Eight Heidegger
• Nine Politics
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index