RUDN Journal of Philosophy

The research serves as an introduction to Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms from the perspective of the so-called “cultural turn” in the methodology of science. Although Cassirer viewed his system as “prolegomena” to a future philosophy of culture and can therefore be regarded as a harbinger of the processes that took place in the late twentieth-century sciences, his philosophy, due to historical circumstances, did not exert a significant influence on their development. However, it has become widely sought after precisely because of these very changes. The study discusses the factors that have accounted for the “renaissance” of Cassirer’s theory since the early 1990s. The author then points to problematic areas in the philosophical study of the system of symbolic forms. Three aspects are particularly highlighted: the extent to which Cassirer’s approach to understanding culture is “Kantian”; the methodological status of symbolic forms, in particular, what is meant by their a priori character; and whether Cassirer’s philosophy of culture is idealistic, or whether his constructivism can be viewed as a form of realism. These aspects already indicate that Cassirer's theory still holds considerable potential for reflection and possible further development. Some approaches to working with Cassirer’s theoretical legacy are presented in the research. Overall, this paper is introductory in nature and is intended as an opening to this issue, which is devoted to an analysis of the philosophy of one of the significant thinkers of the 20th century.

The study demonstrates that Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms remains within the horizon of the Neo-Kantian objectivism of validity, which in the Marburg school of Neo-Kantianism follows - under the heading of the “transcendental method” - the “regressive mode of teaching” or “analytic method” of Kant’s Prolegomena , which proceeds from a given fact and advances from there to the underlying principles. However, in attempting to liberate the “transcendental method” from its restriction to the factum of mathematical natural science and to extend it to the factum of the cultural sciences, Cassirer’s work clearly reveals the systematic problems that Neo-Kantianism believed it could overcome through its factum-theorem. The restriction of the transcendental method to the regressive mode of teaching of the Prolegomena and to mathematical natural science is paradigmatically found in Cassirer’s early work Substance and Function . His critique of the concept of substance and of the psychologistic theory of abstraction forms the starting point for his later extension of the “transcendental method” and will therefore be examined at the outset. From the perspective of the demand for a “logic of objective knowledge”, as Cassirer formulates it in his essay Kant and Modern Mathematics , the transition to the program of the philosophy of symbolic forms will then be made comprehensible, and the relationship of the symbolic forms to the required transcendental logic will be examined. Since, however, the problem of a “logic of objective knowledge” remains unresolved on the ground of the philosophy of symbolic forms, Cassirer finds himself - following his systematic main work - faced with the alternative of spirit or life, from which accordingly his preparatory works for the planned fourth volume of the symbolic forms also proceed. Finally, the study will examine to what extent these preparatory works - which remained fragments - toward a theory of “basic phenomena” succeed in overcoming the opposition between spirit and life, between Kantianism and Goetheanism, and what is actually to be understood by this opposition.

The study revisits the Second Volume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms published in 1925. Under the title “Mythical Thinking”, Ernst Cassirer examines myth as a symbolic form; through an analysis that is at once historical and systematic, he paves the way for an expansion of the term’s scope - a shift that becomes increasingly evident in his later treatises. By the concept of myth, he refers no longer exclusively to the “grand narrative” but also, pars pro toto, to “mythical consciousness”, “mythical thinking”, and a “mythical form of life”; in doing so, he points neither to a merely archaic stage of cultural development nor simply to one cultural sphere among others. Significant - and demanding serious attention - is his metaphorical description of myth as the “native soil” (Mutterboden) of culture. This metaphor vividly reinforces a claim Cassirer maintained consistently until the very end: that myth retains its relevance even within modern culture. A clear instance of this ongoing relevance is found in his critique of the intellectual-historical elements underpinning totalitarian rule - an analysis he presents with regard to the National Socialist regime in his final completed work, “The Myth of the State”. This poses a considerable challenge to our former understanding, informed by his philosophy of culture: Is the concept of myth invoked in the phrase “the myth of the state” truly the same as the one with which he had previously familiarized readers of his writings on mythical thought? Cassirer’s earlier hints to the possibility of cultural conflicts - indeed, as he calls them “antinomies of culture” - find a concrete illustration, an exemplification in “The Myth of the State”.

The purpose of this study is to explore the symbolic construction of myth in Ernst Cassirer’s “Philosophy of Symbolic Forms”. This study provides insight into the new understanding of myth in contemporary culture. A comparative analysis of early 20th-century studies on mythological thinking reveals that the new understanding of myth revolves around the mythologem of the beginning. The relevance of studying mythological chronotopes lies in the need to organize the fundamental concepts and principles of myth-making, as well as to explain the meaning and historical boundaries of this phenomenon. In The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer applied the theory of symbolic representation to culture, particularly to myth. The subject of study (culture) is placed within the symbolic activity of consciousness. The symbol builds its content from the active principle of the spirit (Ursprung). Instead, Cassirer focuses on the algorithm for transforming subjective affects into the sensory existence of myth. The “difference” in the series of everyday repetitive meanings is the power of Man. The subject feels this power and submits to it. The symbolic construction of consciousness projects the object into a different, sacred realm. This is how the symbolic series of repetitive sacred images is formed. This is a mythological chronotope, at the center of which is a sacred source. The study reveals that the mythological symbol forms a special experience of the interaction between the sacred and the profane. It is both connected to and free from sensory perception. The myth becomes a symbolic form and an active constructing principle. This principle ensures the autonomy of the myth and structures the chaos of impressions through the image-sign, which refers to the origins in ritual actions. The purpose of Cassirer's symbolic construction of myth is not cognition, but the organization of behavior.

Contemporary debates on space expansion call for a new understanding of this issue. Existing normative approaches were developed in relation to the needs of human life on Earth. Their direct transfer to extraterrestrial environments remains methodologically and ethically problematic. This gap determines the relevance of the present study, which grounds a philosophical approach capable of understanding outer space simultaneously in its scientific, mythical, aesthetic, ethical, and other dimensions without reducing it to any one of them. The aim of the study is to provide an explicit and systematic reconstruction of Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms and to develop, on this basis, an ethics of cosmic responsibility. The research draws upon Cassirer’s major works and contemporary studies in space ethics. The methodology follows Cassirer’s transcendental analysis of space, symbolic form, and the concept of animal symbolicum , reconstructing these concepts in their internal logic and critically applying them to space ethics. The findings show that Cassirer’s conception of space allows outer space to be understood as a multidimensional symbolic reality rather than a value-neutral domain. The concept of animal symbolicum mitigates the risk of identity loss, since human identity depends on the capacity for symbolic activity rather than on the place of habitation, even in extraterrestrial environments. Any space inhabited by humans constitutes a symbolic form through which values are legitimized by different cultural forms. The author argues that cosmic responsibility arises from the very act of symbolic constitution, which attributes values and possesses both constructive and destructive potential. The study concludes that Cassirer’s philosophy contains an underappreciated methodological resource for space ethics. Its novelty lies in deriving responsibility from the theory of symbolic world-formation rather than adapting existing ethical principles to outer space, while preserving conceptual rigor without relying on existential or ontological presuppositions.

The research presents a comparative analysis of the philosophical interpretations of the concepts of the animal world (Umwelt) and the human world developed in Ernst Cassirer’s “An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture” and in the works of Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner, and Arnold Gehlen. The purpose of this comparison is not only to reveal the specificity of Cassirer’s approach, but also to demonstrate the similarities in their lines of argumentation. In this way, the philosophical-anthropological meaning of Cassirer’s work is clarified, and the work itself is considered within the context of the anthropological turn. It is shown that all the aforementioned theorists referred to the conception of the animal Umwelt developed in the works of Jakob von Uexküll, who demonstrated that the animal and its environment exist in a special dynamic interaction revealing a complex of meanings constituted by the species-specific character of the living being. It is noted that Cassirer not only emphasizes this relation between the animal and its environment, but also draws attention to the fundamental difference between human symbolic activity and the formation of meanings within the animal world. Representatives of the anthropological turn understand the human world as the result of a specific human activity that creates a new reality in which myth and religion, art, science, and history interact in unity. The distinctive character of this activity is clarified through different conceptions of the human being: Cassirer interprets the human functionally, whereas Scheler, Plessner, and Gehlen adopt an essentialist understanding. It is further emphasized that only Gehlen consistently follows a biophilosophical approach, while the other theorists do not ground the phenomenon of human culture-forming activity in the organic constitution of the human being. The study concludes by highlighting the methodological potential of Cassirer’s approach for contemporary philosophical-anthropological research.

The research examines Ernst Cassirer’s major work, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, in the context of the changing epistemological landscape, from the early 20th century to the turn of the 21st. The study demonstrates that Cassirer's evolutionary model, which conceptualized changes in human knowledge about the world around us and ourselves, was largely at odds with the philosophical trends that emerged in the late 19th and first third of the 20th centuries (phenomenology, existentialism, analytical philosophy, and others), which developed outside the realm of evolutionary thought. Cassirer's evolutionary model also clashed with the latest trends in many natural and human sciences of the first half of the 20th century (linguistics, ethnography, cosmology). This context proved highly unfavorable for the assimilation and development of the ideas in Cassirer's trilogy within philosophical and scientific thought, as they seemed outdated to contemporaries even by the time of their publication. The decades surrounding the mid-20th century made the idea of evolutionism, and consequently Cassirer's concept, even more unattractive. However, as this research demonstrates, since the second half of the 20th century - in both the natural sciences and the humanities - the ideas of the “Philosophy of Symbolic Forms” examined from a new epistemological perspective, can be useful for better understanding the development of the physical and mathematical sciences, as well as for modern theories of the evolution of consciousness and theories of anthropogenesis. Furthermore, the research suggests that attitudes toward various theories of historical evolution are often linked less to the scientific credibility of a given concept than to how its emergence relates to the overall historical and cultural context. The critical attitude towards many theories of this type, including Cassirer's philosophical concept, was largely due to a distrust of the very idea of progress that engulfed both philosophy and many scientific disciplines, which was probably connected with the political and cultural upheavals that swept Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

The study examines Ernst Cassirer’s writing style in light of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of polyphony. The term “polyphony” refers to various writing styles and literary genres that share the same structural traits. It is characterized by the absence of a single dominant standpoint, the plurality of perspectives on a given subject, the dialogical interaction of independent ideas and the equal status of voices involved in dialogue. Drawing on these polyphonic qualities as described by Bakhtin in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics , the study shows that Cassirer’s philosophical texts are organized according to a similar principle. Despite their monological form, Cassirer’s writings progress as a multi-voiced conversation rather than a monological system. He develops a unique method of speaking through others. His texts employ the characteristics Bakhtin counts essential to Socratic dialogue. The research shows that Cassirer creates a performance of “living ideas”, allowing them to advance through dialogic movement. He reveals the “dialogue of an epoch” that brings into dialogue diverse thinkers such as Mach, Koffka, Klages, and Husserl, as well as figures from different historical periods, such as Galileo. Moreover, his philosophical world contains elements that Bakhtin describes as carnivalistic. These include conceptual ambivalence, freedom from the dogmatism of classical logic, a functional approach and an openness to paradox. I demonstrate the polyphonic and carnivalistic dimensions of Cassirer’s philosophy by analyzing The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms . To illustrate how these polyphonic features function in Cassirer’s argumentation, the discussion turns to his treatment of a philosophical issue that was central to the Marburg School: the critique of the sensualist theory. This process brings Cassirer’s text toward a position that can be interpreted as a performative acting of paradox.

The study examines the methodical transformation that Cassirer carried out within the cultural-philosophical horizon of Marburg Neo-Kantianism. From a perspective that has often been overlooked, the philosophy of Marburg Neo-Kantianism can be understood as being culturally-philosophically oriented. In this context, Cassirer’s thought appears as a Janus-faced relationship of continuity and transgression, which takes shape particularly in relation to Cohen. Although he shares with Cohen the methodical approach of the “transcendental method” and “systematic unity”, he simultaneously marks a decisive crossroads at the “limit of experience” - designated by Cohen as the “abyss of intelligible contingency” and by Cassirer as the “antinomy of experience”. While Cohen aims here at transcendental justification, Cassirer directs his interest toward demonstrating the diversity of cultural reality. If this demonstration itself becomes problematic, Cassirer introduces the “Hegelian-phenomenological method”, in which epistemology genetically transforms into a “phenomenology of knowledge”. From this arises the methodical demand to accomplish the task of systematic unity not only transcendentally but also Hegelian-phenomenologically. In this way, Cassirer carries out a methodical transformation that can be understood as a renewal of the Neo-Kantian leitmotif - “with Marburg Neo-Kantianism and beyond it”.

The research concerns the concept of divine revelation, characteristic of the contemporary doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, and its influence on the development of the ecumenical movement and interreligious dialogue. Divine revelation is one of the central categories of Christian doctrine in any denomination. However, it often seems that this concept is clearly defined and dogmatized and has remained unchanged from the first centuries of Christianity to the present day. The study demonstrates that this opinion is incorrect for two reasons. First, the concept of divine revelation has undergone transformation. The contemporary understanding of divine revelation, characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church, is a relatively recent development and is the result of several philosophical and theological changes in the early 20th century. It only fully took shape in the mid-20th century, as reflected in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and subsequent documents of the Catholic Church. This research briefly examines the history of the development of this concept and presents a current understanding. Secondly, the concept presented in modern Catholic doctrine is not unambiguous or clearly defined. Therefor it raises many questions and debates. This study attempts to evaluate this concept from the perspective of one of the most common classifications of divine revelation concepts, which divides them into exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist.

The research examines the anthropological ideas of the Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers of the Nicene tradition, which, due to their ethical and philosophical foundations, have not lost their relevance in the contemporaneity and form the basis of the Orthodox Christianity. In this regard, the works of Gregory of Nyssa, John Climacus, Maximus the Confessor, and John Chrysostom are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the conceptual tenets of the pre-Byzantine Church Father Athanasius of Alexandria’s teaching on the human being. His understanding of the human coming to know God and his concepts of freedom and free will, became meaningful for subsequent patristic thought. The article highlights Gregory of Nyssa’s points on the universality of human nature and John Chrysostom’s conception of human duality as a reflection of the antinomy of good and evil. The symbolism and metaphorical nature of Maximus the Confessor’s thought are emphasized. In the context of Maximus the Confessor’s teaching on the logoi of God, his vision of the knowledge of God is presented as man’s perception of the Divine Logos “imprinted” in the mortal world. St. Maximus’s reflection of the Divine energies as the actions of God the Logos and the significance of the Incarnation for the unity of the created and absolute worlds is emphasized. The possibilities of the knowledge of God are also examined based on an analysis of the mystical-religious teaching on the uncreated Divine light of Symeon the New Theologian. The tradition of the Light held a special place in Eastern Christianity, cultivating the psychological and inner resources of a person for the “vision” of the uncreated light, which signified the simultaneous comprehension of God. The article highlights the significance of Byzantine anthropology for Old Russian philosophy and contemporary Orthodox thought.

The research has the goal to analyze the features, advantages and disadvantages of ubiquitous taxonomy types (classification) - dichotomy and (bipartite and multinomial polytomy) due the spirit of R. Carnap’s “conceptual engineering”. It is shown that taxonomy is a complex process that not only of logical nature and does not allow a “mechanical” approach either in the case of dichotomy or polytomy. Attention is drawn to the fact that dichotomies allow for fairly rapid decision-making and efficient allocation of resources when decisions cannot be delayed and are useful in the early stages of scientific research. At more advanced stages of activity and / or research, it is desirable to shift the focus to the application of bipartite and polynomial kinds of polytomy, through which the subject area can be studied in greater depth and detail. It is emphasized that these taxonomy methods have ontological and ontogenetic foundations. We stress that persons with certain psychological characteristics, especially those with autism, who perceive situations of uncertainty with wariness or apprehension and seek to transform these situations promptly into having definite contours, are more prone to dichotomies. It is suggested that in societies dominated by cultures and especially religions (for example, Manichaeism), which are located to create pictures of the world without halftones and shades in the format of white - black (good - evil), preference is given to the ordering of reality exactly on the dichotomous principle. We claim that various abstractions (identification, indistinguishability, individualization) functions implicitly in the process of classification.

In the work “The Logic of Pure Knowledge” Hermann Cohen provides a rationale for contemporary scientific thinking. Since Kant, mathematical science and mathematics have changed significantly. Henceforth, the “two trunks” of knowledge - sensibility and understanding - can no longer satisfy philosophers. Cohen examines the creation of science through pure infinitesimal thinking and, as a result, concludes that the new understanding of reality has emerged, namely, scientific reality. The philosopher argues that a strict distinction must be made between reality (Realität) and actuality (Wirklichkeit). Accordingly, actuality should not be equated with reality, since the perception of actuality is always connected to sensible sensations, whereas reality must be understood as the result of scientific infinitesimal thinking. The philosopher figuratively demonstrates the distinction between reality and actuality (existence): reality signifies the connection of concepts in the understanding, whereas existence indicates a connection “with” the understanding. Reality is continuously generated by mathematical and, more broadly, scientific infinitesimal thinking and the first principle (Ursprung). The generation of reality by scientific thinking directly indicates its constructive nature. Accordingly, the very concept of reality unambiguously indicates its scientific origin. In this case, reality is nothing other than a mathematized scientific judgment about being as a scientific entity, whereas actuality is the sensible perception of the surrounding world by non-philosophical and non-scientific thinking. Consequently, reality is nothing other than the scientific picture of the world created by modern mathematical natural science and the scientific community. In this capacity, reality truly cannot be identified with “being”, “actuality”, or “existence”.

The concept of justice is one of the most important instruments for legitimizing social order, but its application is often limited to the public sphere. The origins of this can be found in antiquity, so this study is devoted to the question of how the boundaries of understanding and applying justice in ancient theories of social justice relate to the division of society into public and private spheres. The goal is to answer the question of what role the concept of justice and the dichotomy of the public and private play in justifying social hierarchy. To achieve this goal, comparative and hermeneutic methods were used. As a result, it was discovered that a strict opposition of the public and private is not at all primary for Western culture. Only the historical exclusion of the majority from the public sphere, which simultaneously deprives them of genuine privacy, gives rise to the opposition of the two spheres. In Plato’s philosophy, ideas about justice clash with the patriarchal private sphere, as a result of which the project of the second-best state turns out to be unfair from the perspective of Plato's concept of justice. Aristotle's philosophy at its very foundations serves to justify social hierarchy, but the concept of justice is built on the basis of relations between equals. The latter allows it to be used within a non-hierarchical perspective, which views the private sphere as a full-fledged community, and not a single entity. This perspective demonstrates the injustice of the patriarchal private sphere even from the point of view of Aristotle himself, who sometimes strives to understand the family as a community. It is the patriarchal form of the dichotomy of the public and the private that serves as an obstacle to checking the structure of the entire society for compliance with ideas of justice and is a hidden justification for social hierarchy. The analysis carried out not only once again actualized ancient ideas about justice but also showed that any theory of justice must include a description of its own application in relation to both the public and private spheres.

The rich Eurasian heritage remains an urgent historical and philosophical problem today and has an important theoretical, methodological, and socio-practical significance. The title of N.S. Trubetskoy's famous work, “A View of Russian History from the East, Not from the West,” can be used as an epigraph to reflect on the fundamental principles of knowledge about the changing world and the formation of a new scientific worldview. In this context, it is interesting to analyze the reflections of the Mongolian national intelligentsia, many of whom actively participated in the Eurasian movement in the early 20th century. The original search for self-identification principles and the problem of rethinking the turning points in Russian history, particularly its Mongolian period, have always been the subject of intense attention from both Eurasianists and their opponents. The “Mongolian Eurasianists” were not left out of this discussion. Their involvement and personal experiences of the dramatic events of the early 20th century are of great historical and philosophical significance for a comprehensive understanding of the Eurasian heritage. Unfortunately, their rich creative work has not been systematically analyzed or studied to this day. Therefore, one of the main goals of this study is to address this historiosophical gap. The most prominent Russian Eurasianist philosophers and the Mongolian national intelligentsia, despite their critical perception of some of the Eurasianists’ doctrinal statements, shared a common goal of maximizing the convergence of the national (“Eurasian”) and the national, and of “humanizing” the national. They were united in their belief that the universal, which is not rooted in the national, is doomed to spiritual homelessness and denazification, while the national, which is not reflected in the specific national, is alienated from historicism and humanism. The urgent needs of Mongolia's socio-historical and cultural development have highlighted the full range of opportunities for its Eurasian positioning.