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

• Grant number: 24/21068-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: February 28, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Rafael Rodrigues Garcia
• Grantee: Caio de Almeida Vituriano
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/03210-5 - Ernst Cassirers late philosophical program: the legacy of the symbolic in the construction of the common world, AP.PNGP.PI

Abstract

The project at hand aims to reconstruct the theory of human sciences or cultural sciences worked out by the neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer in his programm of a transcendental philosophy of culture. The theme of the theory of cultural sciences in the general project of Cassirerian philosophy is not trivial, insofar that it is understood by Cassirer as the motive for his formulation of a philosophy of culture which would research the many particular cultural domains. This theory occupies thus a strategic place in the interpretation of the project of the philosophy of symbolic forms. Furthermore, Cassirer seeks to justify the legitimity of the cultural sciences as an autonomous type of scientific knowledge, putting himself against any naturalistic standpoint that tries to reduce the cultural sciences to the frameworks of the natural sciences, what makes the evaluation of his theory relevant to modern approaches in the theory of human sciences. The deep reconstruction of this discussion in Cassirers work demands a comprehensive mapping and evaluation of the published and posthumous texts on this subject-matter, in so far that Cassirer exposed very little on his theory of cultural sciences during his life, but left a row of posthumous texts that expose a matured and rich theory. In this way, our research project will deal, in general, with the historic-systematic pressupositions, with the main developments and with the consequences of the Cassirerian of the cultural sciences, making extensive use of the literature elaborated by him on this subject. Therefore, we seek to determine, more specifically, the exact place of the cultural sciences in the system of symbolic forms, in general, as well as in the subsystem of scince, in particular.