donald phillip verene, the origins of the philosophy of symbolic forms

7/28/2019 Donald Phillip Verene, The Origins of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

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DONALD PHILLIP VERENE

The Origins of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Kant, Hegel, and Cassirer

Donald Phillip Verene, The Origins of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Kant,

Hegel, and Cassirer, Northwestern University Press, 2011, 168pp., $69.95 (hbk)ISBN 9780810127784.

Reviewed byS. G. Lofts, King's at the Western UniversityIn the Preface to his book, Verene sets out the questions his work aims toaddress, the methodological approach it will employ and the central thesis to beargued. There are two connected questions: "How did Cassirer reach the originalphilosophical position for which he is famous? What are the fundamentals ofthis philosophy?" (xii) Verene proposes to adopt Cassirer's own "geneticmethod" in his reading of Cassirer's oeuvre. For Cassirer, Verene states, "the

primary way to understand any human production is to grasp how it came to bewhat it is. This approach is not merely to relate its history but to obtain a graspof its 'inner form.'" (xii) Finally, the central thesis of the work maintainsthat"Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms cannot be understood apart from adialectic between Kantian and Hegelian philosophy that lies within it. Kant andHegel are the master keys to the comprehension of Cassirer's philosophy."(xii) Verene's central claim throughout this work is that Cassirer is not onlyguided by Hegel's conception of "phenomenology" but that it provides theessential philosophical core of the philosophy of symbolic forms,notwithstanding the fact that Cassirer rejected the logocentrism of Hegel's"system" that sublates all reality into the reality of logic and subsequentlyrejected Hegel's concepts of theAufhebung and the Absolute.Though Verene's focus is limited to Kant and Hegel, he acknowledges theexistence of a "large secondary cast" that has influenced the development ofCassirer's thought. In particular, he draws our attention to what he sees as thespecial importance of Goethe, suggesting that although it is beyond the scope ofhis investigation "there is a separate study to be written of Goethe's influence onCassirer." (xiii)The reader not familiar with Cassirer's "genetic method" will most likely not be

able to appreciate its importance for the overall structure of the book as Vereneprovides no further explanation of this methodology. In short, as Cassirerarticulates it, though this is never quoted by Verene, we must return from the"forma formata" to the "formaformans"; in other words, we must move fromthat which "has become" to the "very principle of becoming." (Cf. Formund Technik, 43) Cassirer's genetic-reconstructive method begins with theconcrete objective expressions of spirit, what Cassirer calls the "work" (Werk) ofculture, and through a critical analysis of these crystalline formations (Gebilden)seeks their condition of possibility in the lawful structures of the effective

activity (wirken) of spirit that form (bilden) and configure (gestalten) them, whatCassirer calls the "inner form" of the work. Each symbolic form undertakes the


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formation (Bildung) and configuration (Gestaltung) of reality (Wirklichkeit)according to its own unique laws. The genetic-reconstructive method, thus,focuses on the genesis of historical manifestations of each symbolic form in thedynamic process of their objectivization, and attempts to reconstruct the inner

lawful form of this dynamic process. Cassirer's critique of culture seeks tounderstand each of the symbolic forms in terms of its function within the "unity"(Einheit) of the integral "whole" (Ganzheit) of culture.When we turn to the overall structure of Verene's book, we see that it progresseshistorically through a reading of a small selection of Cassirer's works. Eachchapter is centeredaround a specific historical product (Gebilde) and develops aspecific fundamental element of Cassirer's philosophy, subsequentlydetermining its function within the whole of Cassirer's thought as it historicallyunfolds. Chapter 1 begins with a reading of volume one of the Philosophy ofSymbolic Forms (1923), which treats language as a symbolic form andcontextualizes Cassirer's project as a transformation of Kant's critique of purereason into a critique of culture. Beginning this way, Verene sets language as thecentral symbolic form in Cassirer's understanding of culture. Chapter 2undertakes a reading of the second volume of the Philosophy of SymbolicForms (1925), which is dedicated to the structure of mythical consciousness. AsVerene wants to bring out the Hegelian dimension of Cassirer's project, heinterprets myth as the first step on the "ladder" of scientific consciousness.Verene continues this line of argument in Chapter 3, which focuses on the thirdvolume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1929) in which Cassirer does, in

fact, undertake a "phenomenology of knowledge" -- phenomenologyunderstood, here, in the Hegelian and not in the Husserlian sense of the term. Inthe middle of this chapter, Verene digresses and provides a brief presentation ofthe Cassirer-Heidegger debate at Davos.Chapter 4 turns to the notes and fragments that were to make up the fourthvolume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms which Cassirer nevercompletedand which were published as Volume I ofCassirer'sNachgelassene Manuskripte und Texte (1995). The central aim of thischapter is to bring out the metaphysics of the symbolic forms through an

analysis of the "basis phenomena" and the dialectic between life and spirit thatstands at the heart of Cassirer's view of culture as a drama. The chapter endswith an attack on post-modern thought, as it is understood by Verene, for itsanti-metaphysical tendencies: "Such thinking," Verene states, "is simply unableto make the Socratic turn to contemplation and so can never experience its graspof truth, goodness, and beauty as an integral part of the human." (72) Chapter 5focuses upon Cassirer's 1942 work, The Logic of the Cultural Sciences. Here,Verene provides a short account of Cassirer's distinction between the conceptsof nature and concepts of culture as well as a brief look at Cassirer's response to

George Simmel's "tragedy of culture." Verene begins to bring things together inChapter 6, which examinesAn Essay on Man (1944) and provides some


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reflections on the evolution and consistency of Cassirer's thought as well as thenature of its unity. Finally, Chapter 7 is organized around Cassirer's lastpublished work,Myth of the State (1946), which appeared shortly after hisdeath. In this chapter, Verene develops the view that politics is a symbolic form;

he also provides some reflections on the relation of philosophy to politics aswell as the consequences of this for ethics, human freedom and the nature androle of the state.

While there is a large body of work on the Kantian and neo-Kantian elements ofCassirer's philosophy, there are not very many in-depth studies on Cassirer'sengagement with Hegel. As Verene has published on Hegel and worked onCassirer for over 40 years, this work promises to fill an important lacuna inCassirer studies. However, the reader will no doubt be disappointedsince Verene's study is filled with its own lacunae and in the end it does not

actualize its potential.

The problem is not with Verene's central thesis (this has been clear for sometime now), nor with what he says, but with what he does not say. For a book thatseeks to demonstrate the importance of Hegel to Cassirer's thought, there are ashocking number of very important statements by Cassirer himself concerninghis engagement with Hegel and a number of technical terms shared by Cassirerand Hegel that are never mentioned in Verene's book. What is more, Vereneskips quickly from one statement to another, rarely taking the time to develop a

point in greater detail.

Verene is correct that Cassirer rejects Hegel's "moment" (Moment) of "absoluteknowledge" and thus any notion of afinalAufhebung; however, at the sametime, it would seem that Cassirer nevertheless does employ Hegel's concept oftheAufhebung in his analysis of myth: taking it up, as he does so many of histechnical terms, and transforming its meaning in so doing. What is more, whileCassirer rejects the moment of absolute knowledge, this cannot be equated witha rejection of the Absolute, as Verene mistakenly does. In the moment oftheAufhebung, differences are negated, preserved and taken up into a higher

reality -- thus, negating an ontological difference and subjecting it to a higherontological identity. In the case of myth, this happens when it "levels down" thedistinction between image and reality. "Here [in myth], a law that one might callthe law of leveling down (Nivellierung), the obliteration of specific differencesprevails." (Myth and Language, 151: my translation) Thus, as Verene points out,the dancer does not "represent" the god but is the "presentation" of the god; infact, is the god itself (39); "The god, once symbolized, is actualized." (40) WhatVerene does not recognize is that for Cassirer the relation between language andmyth contains a moment ofAufhebung. Mythical consciousness constitutes a

form of identity thinking based upon a logic of fusion that amounts to a formof sublation (Aufhebung).


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At the heart of Cassirer's account of mythical consciousness is a theory of the"cult" which, with Hegel, he sees as "man's active relation to the gods" (PSF, II219/262). The aim of the cult "consists in overcoming the separation of the Ifrom the Absolute." (PSF, II 220/263) In the words of Hegel, which Cassirer

quotes and which appear nowhere inVerene's work:

To give actuality (wirklich) to this unity, the reconciliation, restoration of thesubject, and his self-consciousness, to bring about a positive feeling ofsharing and participation in the Absolute and a unity with it --this sublation (Aufhebung) of the rupture constitutes the sphere of cult.[1]

Thus, cult is for Hegel and Cassirer, "the eternal process of the subject makingitself identical with the essence of its being."[2] In other words, the cult is aprocess of identification ruled by a logic of negation, insofar as difference isnegated in order to establish the homogeneous unity of a real identity between

the finite and the Absolute.However, this sublation (Aufhebung) that levels down (Nivellierung) difference,thus negating alterity, and subjecting it to an idea, is never itself absolute. It is"religious intuition" that awakens the awareness of "alterity" of the Absolute anddestroys the illusional harmony of mythical identity: "If this involvement andopposition were ever replaced by a pure and perfect equilibrium, the innertension of religion, on which rests its significance as a symbolic form, wouldbe sublated (aufgehoben)." (PSF, II 260/311) It is Hegel's idea of a final andultimate sublation (Aufhebung) that would reduce all "alterity" to the presence of

the idea that Cassirer rejects and, thus, not the mechanism ofthesublation (Aufhebung)per se. In his critique of Hegel, Cassirer writes:

For the balance of forces that he wished to establish proves in Hegel to beonly an illusion. Hegel's aspiration and philosophical ambition was toreconcile "nature" and "idea." But instead of this reconciliation he arrives atthe subjugation of nature to the absolute idea. Nature retains nothing in herown right; she possesses only an apparent independence. All her being sheholds in fee from the idea; for she is nothing but the idea itself, insofar as thislatter is considered not in its absolute being and truth, but in alienation from

itself, in its "alterity." Here lies the true Achilles heel of the Hegelian system.It was not able to withstand for long the attacks that were directed against thispoint with increasing force. (Logic, 35/35)

In Cassirer's "system" spirit remains internally split. Language, myth, art,religion and science never culminate in one particular symbolic form: there is noprecedence of scientific rationality over myth, or for that matter, over any otherobjective manifestation of spirit. It is this inherent heterogeneity within spiritthat distinguishes Cassirer's phenomenology of culture from Hegel'sphenomenology of spirit. For Hegel the different cultural forms culminate in

absolute knowledge:


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it is here that the spirit gains the pure element of its existence, the concept.All the earlier stages it has passed through are, to be sure, preserved as factorsin this culminate state, but by being reduced to mere factors they are, on theother hand, negated. Of all the cultural forms, only that of logic, the concept,

cognition, seems to enjoy a true and authentic autonomy. (PSF, I 83/15)

By contrast, in the philosophy of symbolic forms "the particular cultural trendsdo not move peacefully side by side, seeking to complement one another; eachbecomes what it is only by demonstrating its own particular power against theothers in battle with the others" (PSF, I 82/13). At the heart of culture, there isfound a primordial strife that is originary of the relationship between I and worldthat simultaneously differentiates and unites them.

This said, each of the symbolic forms is a specific moment (Moment) of the

symbolic function of "symbolic pregnance", therefore forming a unity of awhole. Cassirer employs the term "moment" throughout his work and almostcertainly takes it from Hegel; the German term,Moment, can be translated as"moment," as in a moment in time, or as "element," as in an element of astructure. Cassirer, like Hegel, plays on the double meaning. Thus, "theworldview of myth and of theoretical knowledge cannot coexist in the same areaof thought. They are mutually exclusive: the beginning of one is equivalent tothe end of the other." (PSF, III 76) And yet, Cassirer continues "the world ofspirit forms a very concrete unity" the negation of the contents of mythical

consciousness does not signify the end of the spiritual function and power thatbrought them about: this potency survives and continues to act in a new formwithin the concrete totality of spirit. It is at this point that Cassirer quotes Hegel:"'The life of the present (gegenwrtigen) spirit,' writes Hegel in this connection,'is a cycle of stage which on the one hand still subsists side by side and only onthe other hand appears as past. The moments/elements (Momente) which thespirit seems to have left behind it are also present in its depths." (PSF, III 76:translation modified)Finally, it would have been very interesting to have explored Hegel's andCassirer's uses of such terms as: "wirken," "Wirklichkeit," "Entfremdung" amongothers. Cassirer has a theory of action that is clearly developed form hisengagement with Hegel. Verene never enters into a discussion of the nuanceddifference between such German terms as effective action (wirken), doing (Tun),activity (Ttigkeit), action (Handlung) an act (Akt). It was not my intention hereto provide a complete account of the subtle relationship between Hegel's andCassirer's philosophical projects; but to provide a few concrete examples of themany important instances in Cassirer's texts where his engagement with Hegel isclearly manifested but which are largely absent in Verene's account.There is one last lacuna that demands mention. When Verene puts forward the

idea, to cite but one example of many, of the importance of Goethe and theopportunity for a separate study on Goethe's influence on Cassirer, one wonders


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why Verene has not mentioned John M. Krois who, it is well known, has alwaysinsisted on the importance of Goethe for Cassirer. The footnotesof Verene's work are filled with such lacunae.

[1] Hegel, Vorlesungen ber die Philosophie der Religion, Werk, vol. 15, 67.Cited by Cassirer in PSFII, 220.[2] Ibid.

donald phillip verene, the origins of the philosophy of symbolic forms

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