Ernst Cassirers late philosophical program: the legacy of the symbolic in the construction of the common world

• Grant number: 22/03210-5
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Initial Project
• Start date: February 01, 2023
• End date: January 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Rafael Rodrigues Garcia
• Grantee: Rafael Rodrigues Garcia
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Adriano Ricardo Mergulhão ; Ivânio Lopes de Azevedo Júnior ; Lucas Alessandro Duarte Amaral
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/21068-7 - The position of the cultural sciences in the system of symbolic forms in Ernst Cassirer: A study in the theory of cultural sciences under the framework of transcendental philosophy, BP.MS; 24/15847-3 - NOTION OF RACE IN THE GENESIS OF THE MYTH, BP.MS; 23/18244-5 - A normative dimension in the ethical turn of Cassirer's Philosophy of Culture, BP.MS

Abstract

This project aims to analyze in detail the last phase of Ernst Cassirer's philosophical production, more specifically, the writings and studies from the period of exile in which an "ethical turn" in his program takes place. With this, I intend to reconstruct the stages of reconfiguration of his philosophy of culture that culminate in the proposition of a philosophical anthropology and a political philosophy whose central axis is the notion of symbol. From this, we seek to understand in greater depth the works bequeathed by the philosopher in his last years of life and to reinscribe them in the current intellectual landscape, thus accompanying the most recent studies of Cassirer's work and neo-kantianism on the international scene, especially with regard to the re-reading of the neo-kantian movement itself, widely considered, as "Kulturphilosophie". The three main works produced during this period of exile are of interest to this project: The Logic of the Cultural Sciences, 1941, Philosophical Anthropology (or Essay on Man), 1944, and The Myth of the State, 1946. Besides these works, of primary interest to this project are the texts that are produced throughout the years of exile, in which we find the process of reconfiguration of the philosophical program that unfolds from 1935 on. Conferences such as The concept of philosophy as a philosophical problem (1935) and Critical Idealism as a philosophy of culture (1936), articles such as Naturalistic and humanistic foundations of the philosophy of culture (1939), the manuscripts of the courses in exile on Kant (ECN 15) and on Hegel (ECN 16), and the manuscripts preparing what would become the three works mentioned above (ECN 5 - courses on cultural sciences; ECN 6 - on philosophical anthropology; ECN 9 - political writings, manuscripts of the Myth of the State) are the main materials to effect this reconstruction. (AU)