Symbol Philosophy
And The Opening Into Consciousness And Creativity
by Anton G. Hardy
Anton G. Hardy introduces the little-known symbol philosophy of Ernst Cassirer and demonstrates how it opens the door to mental life. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, Cassirer followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic philosophy of science, but after Cohen's death he developed a theory of symbolism, and used it to expand phenomenology of knowledge into a more general philosophy of culture. He is one of the leading 20th century advocates of philosophical idealism.
Hardy applied Ernst Cassirer's paradigm to psychology in his book Psychology and the Critical Revolution, and is elaborating its implications further in this present book. Whereas animals perceive their world by instincts and direct sensory perception, humans create a universe of symbolic meanings. In exploring symbol usage in the construction of this universe, Cassirer shows how myth, art, religion, science, and mathematics all rest in the basic symbol function. Symbol Philosophy And The Opening Into Consciousness and Creativity is a milestone in opening to our understanding mental life in general and in particular the long-time mysteries of "consciousness" and "creativity."