Author Description

In 1933 eminent philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874 1945) fled Nazi Germany for the United States. His fame in Europe having already beenestablished through a public debate with Martin Heidegger in 1929, Cassirer would go on to become a noteworthy influence on American culture. His most important early writings focused on the symbol and symbolic interaction, exploring how human cultures from early myth-based ones to our own modern, scientifically oriented time have used symbols to mediate the basic forms of experience. Following this work, Cassirer extended his insights to encompass a broad spectrum of philosophical themes: from investigations into Western epistemological and scientific traditions to aesthetics and the philosophy of history to anthropology and political philosophy. Reflecting this diversity in Cassirer s own work, "The Symbolic Construction of Reality" collects eleven essays by a wide range of contributors from different fields. Each essay analyzes a different aspect of his legacy, reassessing its significance for our contemporary world and bringing much-needed attention to this seminal thinker."