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  About the Symbol in

Cassirer´s : Essay on Man

  Seminar: Versuch über den Menschen von Ernst Cassirer

Masterstudiengang in Kognitive Wissenschaften

Semester

Hausaufsatz von:   Clemens Bauer

Semester:   WS 06/07

Abgabedatum Datum: 01/02/2007

 

  

Contents 

1  Introduction. 2

2  A clue to the nature of man: The symbol and from animal reactions to human responses. 3

3  Science. 8

4  Conclusion  13

5  Literature  14

   

 

1  Introduction

Seeing shadows like the prisoners in the cave of Plato’s simile[1], that’s what life of man would be like if he had not the symbol. Without symbols, mans life would be confined within the limits of his biological needs and his practical interests, thus not differentiating himself from other species[2]. In his “Essay on Man”, Ernst Cassirer examines man’s efforts to understand himself and to deal with the problems of his universe through a creation and use of symbols. He analyzes the major symbolic forms of human enterprise: Language, Myth, Art, Religion, History, and Science. He discusses these subjects with the help of great thinkers of all times, making annotations on what, in each moment, these persons thought. He explains the point of view of Philosophers, Biologists, Naturalists, Physicists etc, and interprets them in a very unique way, to make the reader understand his point. He goes from Heraclitus to Kierkegaard and Einstein. This essay is a good synthesis of the ability of man to resolve human problems by the simple use of his mind through symbols.[3]

I have chosen three chapters that caught my attention. I will synthesize what for me is a symbol by looking into chapter II, “A clue to the nature of man: the Symbol” and chapter III, “From animal reactions to human responses”.

Then I will continue to the last chapter, XI “Science” to see the absolute evolution of the symbol through human existence to our times.

Finally I will close this work with my conclusion and own interpretation of “An essay on man” and what it left in me.

 

2  A clue to the nature of man: The symbol and from animal reactions to human responses

In this second chapter, Cassirer dedicates his attention to the Symbol. The underlying question he asks is different from that of other philosophical or metaphysical theories, he sees this symbolic thought and symbolic behaviour among the most characteristic features of human life, and that the whole progress of human culture is based on this condition. For Cassirer, Man is a part of the animal kingdom, and in no way apart or superior to it. But to Cassirer Man is, in a new dimension of reality. He trespasses the limits of organic life, he evolved a specific concept of the world. The main difference between Man and other organisms is that man not only reacts through reflexes, he uses thought.

  “There is an unmistakable difference between organic reactions and human responses. In the first case a direct and immediate answer is given to an outward stimulus; in the second case the answer is delayed. It is interrupted and retarded by a slow and complicated process of thought.”[4]

Man, as all other species has a receptor system, which consists of specialized organs, and an effectors system, also with different organs. Through the communication of these two systems, animals can adapt to their environment. In man we find a third link; Cassirer describes this as the symbolic system.[5] And this new acquisition transforms his whole life. “Hence, instead of defining man as an animal rationale, we should define him as an animal symbollicum. By so doing we can designate his specific difference, and we can understand the new way open to man- the way to civilization.” [6]

Through this Symbols only, is it possible for Man not only to react thoughtful to the environmental changes, but also to answer them in an intelligent way. This means after thinking, maybe also anticipating. Through this ability also the perceived world changes. “This new acquisition transforms the whole of human life. As compared with other animals, man lives not merely in a broader reality; he lives, so to speak, in a new dimension of reality.”[7]

And for this new reality it is not only the objects of the physical world that are important, much more relevant are the imaginative or symbolic objects or thoughts that play a major role. In the contrast to the animal world, also feelings like desires, fears, or hopes play a very important role, but these are not objective perceived things. No, they are subjective constructed symbols.

“No longer can man confront reality immediately; he cannot see it, as it were, face to face. Physical reality seems to recede in proportion as man’s symbolic activity advances. Instead of dealing with the things themselves man is in a sense constantly conversing with himself.” [8]

In this paragraph I understand Cassirer in a way that it is a wonderful achievement of man to gain this achievement of knowledge, but it is not only to be seen as a positive thing, as in some cases it is not for good. In the last cited paragraph we find that at one point man converses with himself. This is an interesting point, in the sense that it makes a doubt come to light, and this doubt is one of the most potent triggers of all the advances of science today. Where do we come from? What are we? What am I supposed to do? What does this and that mean? etc, are all questions of our self to our selves, and to the rest of the world, and the universe. And these questions arise from the most inner of our being.

Here we can stop and ask, is this a pure ability of Humans?

Cassirer answers this question by exemplifying it with Pavlov’s experiment. Here we can find a symbol in dogs that were previously conditioned to a specific stimulus, this is just to give an example of a symbol that can be learned in the animal world. These primitive processes are stated as a pre-symbolic process. This demonstrates that animals are also capable of learning to a certain level to deal with symbols, but far away from thinking in symbolic terms or act in symbolic ways.

He also makes a point to the difference between Symbols and Signals. This two terminus are not interchangeable for Cassirer. Symbols are in contrast to Signals not part of a being world, thus not objective things, they are merely subjective constructs. Symbols are of a meaning world, they are very particular but their translation or function is quite universal. A symbol can have one of the following characteristics: Universal, accessible, broadly applicable.[9] A symbol is always closely related to the object it represents. This gives the wide spectrum of variability in the symbolic world of man. A thing or a thought can be easily changed from one object to another or the meaning can change from one subject to another. In the same manner as a reaction can be interpreted as two different things by different people. That is the main reason why distinct cultures give different meanings to the same things or give the same meaning to different things. Thus, this symbolic meaning or this socialization has to be learned, and this begins in early childhood.[10]

  Another important aspect of the general problem is the dilemma of the dependence of the relational thought upon the symbolic thought. One way of thinking this is the one that connects effects. This is also found in the animal kingdom. The conscious awareness of optic or acoustic stimuli is active for a variety of aspects in the outside world, and is indispensable for example to be orientated in a certain place.

Man went further in the evolution of this simple orientation in space, he is no more dependant on the objective real producer of certain acoustic stimulus or optic phenomena, he can get out the most important feature and isolate it from the rest, and put his whole attention to it, and imagine the rest. [11]

Another question arises with the differentiation between Symbol and Signals, or the perceiving of these. The definition of intelligence. There are other animals that are well able to learn and not only to react mechanically to given problems. So we can define intelligence as the adjustment to the immediate environment. And that is a certainly also seen in animals. But what about man. He developed another sense of intelligence; he developed a symbolic imagination, or symbolic intelligence[12]

We can see from the later that Cassirer introduced the symbol in a very convincing way in the contemporary civilization of man. The differences between the perception of symbols and signals in the animal and human world are evident, and rely specially on the ability of thought and abstraction or imagination in man. This abstraction and imagination will lead man also to develop language, which Cassirer also discusses extensively in his essay but would break the frame of this work to explain. The symbol, so Cassirer, is the process of assigning a meaning to an object of the world. He gives very clear examples on two girls who had some kind of sense disability, both reached a new level of comprehension, after having understood the meaning of names. Every object on this world has a name that shows the particular characteristics of that object, but this characteristic, are the symbolism, the imagined or abstract meaning of an object, in other language than the real objective one.  For example, when we see a river, we imply water, and this is something that comes with in the river, it gets a different symbolic meaning than just an objective thing.

This is the beginning of al symbolic language, where language per se is one of them, but music, art, religion, science, these all speak symbolic languages, they assign names and values to things, and this names or explanations are only approximations to what really is going on in a humans mind. Because when I say “beautiful” it may mean a total different thing for every human. Cassirer gives good explanation to the symbol, but maybe a more detailed dissertation on the origins would have been helpful.

Why, on the first place did man develop this symbolism in contrast to only being a signalization animal? And is the symbol good enough to communicate mans thoughts? These are two questions that would still be open to analysis.

 

3  Science

From the main explanation of the symbol, I will jump directly to the last chapter, this will give further insight into the thought pipeline in which human civilization is at the moment. To give a brief resume, we analyzed Cassirer´s definition of Symbol. This is the capability of imagination and abstraction, thus giving him the symbolic imagination and symbolic intelligence.

“Science is the last step in man’s mental development and may be regarded as the highest and most characteristic attainment of human culture” [13]

This kind of communicating and understanding the world could not have evolved without the special conditions of a symbolic world. The scientific thought is the most powerful tool of humankind to understand, or try to understand the world as it is.

“It is science that gives us the assurance of a constant world.” [14]

Cassirer explains the term in its Greek origins meaning that science or episteme derives from firmness or stability. This is why the scientific process is the one that leads to a stable equilibrium, to a stabilization and consolidation of the world of our perceptions and thoughts. Experience, says Kant, is the first product of our understanding. The product of matter and form coming together. Through our sense perceptions, matter, or objects enter our thought, and here they are transformed by understanding into scientific phenomena. “Then, and then only we say that we know an object if we have produced synthetic unity in the manifold of intuition.”[15] Cassirer takes the example of Kant’s Transcendental Analytic attempts to explain the fact of a mathematical science of nature.

He explains that man has always been in contact with natural phenomena, and has always tried to explain it, to understand it. At a very first launch this explanations where Mythical or purely linguistic concepts. But if these concepts are analyzed we can find that they are by no means “primitive”.[16] In the contrary, if we analyze them, we can find more profound and sophisticated answers or explanations. But these were mostly metaphorical explanations, full with symbolic meaning, that required initiation in that matter, thus not open for everyone. Modern science begins with the quest for simplicity.[17] Simplex sigillum veri seemed to be the fundamental property of science. But these is a long way to go, to get the simple out of the complex, that’s why Cassirer gives the example of Alchemy preceding modern Chemistry, and Astrology modern Astronomy. So what was the limitations of these evolution, of these understanding of the natural phenomena. Cassirer gets back to the problem of language; he says that there was a need of a more precise language to explain these phenomena. With speech, man tried to classify things together, putting similes with similes, started to distribute phenomena and put them into certain categories, depending on their similarities or dissimilarities. But then here again another challenge was found, not only these similarities where important. Another dilemma raised and this was, order. This further developed in more detailed analysis, and at the end we arrived at a ordering system based on a general theory of evolution, the connection between objects organic or inorganic was found, and gave the basis of classification. This derived from a hypothetical thought that was transformed by imagination into a specific language, thus a very exact symbol.[18] “What is unconsciously done in language is consciously intended and methodologically performed in scientific process.”[19] But then another thought, another hypothesis proposed another way of understanding the world, not only by language as we know it, they discovered a new language, the language of numbers. “This discovery marked the natal our of our modern conception of science.” [20]

One of the most exciting experiences of mankind was the discovery of the regularities, of the never-ending unchangeable regularities, from the smallest to the biggest objects in the universe “…in the movement of the planets, in the rise of the sun or the moon, in the change of the seasons”.[21] And this is the best example to find the relation between science and mythical thought, because this was already described there. We can trace this back to the first systems of Babylonian astrology which we see as early as about 3800 B.C. The Greek approached this from another point of view. Pythagoras made his first discovery, when he found the dependence of the pitch of sound to the length of the vibrating chord; it was not the fact itself but the abstract, intellectual interpretation of this fact, which became decisive for the further mathematical thought.[22] Pythagoras could not think of these being a mere coincidence or an isolated fact. Mind and beauty where very close together in Greek culture and had an entirely objective meaning.

  “Beauty is truth; it is a fundamental character of reality. If the beauty which we feel in the harmony of sounds is reducible to a simple numerical ratio it is this number that reveals to us the fundamental structure of the cosmic order... “Number, is the guide and master of human thought. Without its power everything would remain obscure and confused.””[23]

In Numbers alone we can find the intelligible universe, and can explain it. But still this Numeric world is still a symbolic world but here no distinction can be made between symbol and object, the object suddenly became the symbol, and the symbol became the object. This does not hold so b anymore as it was in those days, but it still is a major step in the objectification of the natural phenomena. Here we can clearly see the differences between the objectification and the meaningful world of speech, in every word we find a different area of meaning. 

That is one of the mayor reasons that science uses numbers to communicate. In number on the other hand it’s meaning is definitive by the position it occupies in the whole system, which is infinite, without limits or constrictions.

The mathematical continuum gives to it the completely transparent and logic, and harmonizes everything. The different disciplines of science are only different standpoints from where to look up at the phenomena of the universe and try to explain it, as long as it uses the objective language of numbers it can be understood by everybody.

“The pure symbolism of number supersedes and obliterates the symbolism of common speech. Not only the macrocosm but also the microcosm- the world of interatomic phenomena- could now be described in this language.”[24]

So we arrived at last at the very core of the symbolic meaning. The symbol is the tool to get a closer understanding of the world. In his analysis, Cassirer goes from the simplest known symbol of speech, the mere pronunciation of sounds, to the maximum expression of it, the number. This at last is the more specific symbol to transmit  knowledge, and try to explain the phenomena of the universe, and to predict the facts in a stable way. This is perfectly comprehensible, and makes a perfect sense in the way Cassirer presented it. But now we are confronted with a more philosophical question that has transposed the pure Philosophical sphere to the natural sciences, the problem of determinism.

This puts us in a dilemma. Science is in need of a methodological determinism to get ground for its claims, because without determinism all the symbolism of numbers fall apart, and is again in the void of the universe. But on the other hand, if we have the methodological determinism as the real fact, then what are we at the end of the day? If we assume that the formula of Laplace is correct:

“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.” [25]

Then we may assume that al scientific work cannot be attained if the scientist does not obey to this fact of nature. But then are scientists only translators of the natural phenomena? This may very well apply, but these cannot be mere fact collecting subjects. It is necessary, as we stated at the beginning to have an imaginative and abstraction-producing mind that only can be found in humans.

“In language, in religion, in art, and in science, man can do no more than to build up his own universe – a symbolic universe that enables him to understand and interpret. To articulate and organize, to synthesize and universalize his human experience.” [26]

 

4  Conclusion

In his entire essay, Cassirer makes the notice that the only purpose of myth, religion, art, language, and history is to find the absolute truth, and the meaning of our existence. In all these disciplines, these symbols are loaded with a very personal, or social touch that makes them inexact, subjective. The mythological and religious parts are loaded with prejudices or fears that for centuries, and in the case of religion has still a very dramatic weight, in how the human behaviour or its existence is explained. Art in contrast is one of the nearest possibilities to achieve the goal of absolute knowledge of the truth. I would personally claim that in art, you can find the supreme truth of humanity, of nature and the universe, the perfect harmony. Science in the other hand is the translation of this perfect harmony into a numerical objective and simplified world, it makes from a subjective inner symbol an objective symbol that everybody can understand an obtain the same meaning from it. I see science as the ultimate language to communicate to other humans, to explain the natural phenomena. When we have reached the truth, the understanding of the natural phenomena, we explain it. In other words, the artist is a creator of truth through himself, he expresses the deterministic facts of the world through his very personal experience, and science is the one and only language that, with the help of mathematics, can explain this truth to others in an objective manner. The other virtue of humans is Emotion. Through emotion the artist perceives the absolute harmonious and perfect beauty of everything, the universe of the macro and micro cosmos. Through his emotion he understands it, and with the help of his creativity he creates, some times replicates the perfect truth but this truth is only visible to the artist, or to the most sensible human beings, here the sum of all other disciplines is found, and represented. But when we have reached the truth, what do we do with it? Could it change the determined way of our existence? No, it may not change it but it may explain it and make it more real, more enjoyable to live in.

 

5  Literature

1.    Ernst Cassirer, 1944, An Essay on man, BookCrafters, Inc. Fredericksburg, Virginia.

2.    Kant, 1781, Critique of pure Reason

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[1] Cassirer, Essay on Man. P 41

[2] idem. P. 41

[3] Cassirer, Essay on Man, back review.

[4] Cassirer, p. 24

[5] idem. p. 24

[6] idem. p. 26

[7] idem. p. 24

[8] Cassirer, p. 25

[9] idem. p 32

[10] idem. p 35

[11] Cassirer, p. 38

[12] idem. p.33

[13] Cassirer, p. 207

[14] idem. p. 207

[15] Kant, Critique of pure Reason (1^st German ed.), p.105

[16] Cassirer, p. 208

[17] idem. p. 208

[18] idem. p. 209

[19] idem. p. 210

[20] idem. p.210

[21] idem. p. 210

[22] Cassirer, p. 211

[23] idem. p. 211

[24] idem. p. 214ff

[25] Cassirer, p. 219 from an introduction to Laplace´s demon

[26] idem. p. 221