Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T15:16:14.729Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 2 - The Status of Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture

from Part I - Cassirer’s Philosophy of Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2021

Simon Truwant
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, Samantha Matherne solves a number of tensions in Cassirer’s dispersed writings about art. Does art align with the “expressive” or the “representative” function of consciousness? And is art, like myth and religion, a cultural domain that we are supposed to surpass toward mathematics and natural science, or is it also situated on the highest rungs of human culture? Matherne first argues that Cassirer defends a cognitivist rather than an expressivist theory of art, according to which art represents the intuitive forms of external objects and emotions. Next, she attributes to Cassirer a “liberal” theory of cultural teleology, which allows for culture to progress toward different goals. On this basis, she holds that, for Cassirer, although mathematics and natural science are more advanced than art with respect to progress toward conceptual knowledge, art is more advanced than all the other symbolic forms when it comes to intuitive insight.In this way, Matherne elucidates not just the place but the place of priority that art has in Cassirer’s system of culture.

Type
Chapter
Information
Interpreting Cassirer
Critical Essays
, pp. 34 - 52
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×