Cassirer,Psychology,and The Logical Foundations Of Humanities

Western philosophy was experiencing a profound ideological revolution from late 19th-century to early 20th-Century.As a result,our mode of thinking was transfered from modern Western philosophy to contemporary philosophy which was featured by the deconstruction on dualistic mode of thinking and dualistic word view.Consequently,Western philosophy turned to a subjective trend that happened under efforts of philosophers coming from different background.Moreover,it was embodied in their unique theoretical systems which included the act psychology of Brentano and the phenomenological psychology of Husserl.Here,we called these two psychologies as intentional psychology so as to serve for our research theme.For this reason,it is interesting and beneficial to understand above trend by revealing their common thought temperament that is contained in their different theoretical systems through comparative study.On this basis,we will be able to get useful clues that contribute to understand every theoretical system uniformly.German philosopher Cassirer made outstanding contributions in above process.However,most of people just realized the face value of his “philosophy of symbolic forms” in the sense of his Philosophy of Culture or just equaled his Philosophy of Culture to his philosophy of symbolic forms directly.But,what Cassirer pointed precisely in different contexts,his Philosophy of Culture is exactly based on his philosophy of symbolic forms.Therefore,when we further explore the “final foundation” of Cassirer's philosophical thought,we certainly need to question how his philosophy of symbolic forms would base itself.Nevertheless,It is disappointing that we almost could not find out what that basis is when we deeply entered into his threevolumed book of the Philosophy of symbolic forms along the above way of thinking.On the other hand,it is undeniable that Cassirer did thoroughly change us the understanding about human and world productively.Further studies showed that there was an special implicit ideological principle in Cassirer's cultural philosophy.Only by revealing it explicitly,can the basis of his philosophy of symbolic forms transfer from an “implicit state” to “explicit state”.In terms of the fundamental character of above ideological principle,it was identified with phenomenological psychology which was created by Brentano,developed by Husserl and responded by James.Accordingly,we called it as ideological undercurrent of intentional psychology.In other words,the self foundation of the philosophy of symbolic forms or logical structure of Cassirer's philosophical thought inherently requires the thematization of intentional psychology that implied in it.It is the ideological undercurrent of intentional psychology which serves as the ideological principle that implicitly run through the philosophy of symbolic forms,gives Cassirer's cultural philosophy which sets in the philosophy of symbolic forms a special temperament.Furthermore,it is this special temperament make Cassirer's cultural philosophy differ from other approach of cultural study,which includes the professional disciplines that study on different cultural object,such as linguistics,religion,mythology,art and so on.What's its typical characteristic is,it gives "science" the equal value with linguistics,religion,mythology and art,and further gives science humanistic implication in the sense of it serves as expression of human spirit or as its own realized forms.As a result,it transcends the opposite state between science and humanity.On this background,we could regard Cassirer's cultural philosophy as the generalized humanities.Taking the discussion on self foundation of the philosophy of symbolic forms into consideration,we can say that it is intentional psychology serves as the function of laying a foundation for the humanities.Therefore,we can acquire unified understanding about Cassirer's philosophical thought not only on the philosophy of symbolic forms or relationship between cultural philosophy and the philosophy of symbolic forms but also on the level of,broadly speaking,the humanities.In a word,this dissertation focuses on Cassirer's philosophical thought and aims at revealing the thematization of implicit psychology in it,so as to revealing the logical structure of Cassirer's philosophical thought as a whole and obtains unified understanding about Cassirer's philosophical thought.On this basis,further to clarify the function of psychology on laying a foundation for the humanities.Introduction is going to educe the theme,method and ideas of this dissertation on the basis of research status on Cassirer.First chapter study on the historical thought background of Cassirer's philosophy,including Kant's critical philosophy,Hegel's phenomenology of spirit,and ideological undercurrent of intentional psychology.I supposed that they are interacting each other in Cassirer's thought,and no one of them could reasonably explain his thought.Second chapter aims at illustrating the logical structure of Cassirer's philosophical thought as a whole,which implies the clarification of that logical structure and the systematic completion of his thought depend on the thematization of implicit intentional psychology,through exploring the relationship between cultural philosophy and the philosophy of symbolic forms and analyzing the double implications of concept of "symbolic form".Third chapter aims at illustrating Cassirer's psychological thought by reference to Natorp 's psychological thought on the background of historical clues of western psychology,upon which we can generally point out that Cassirer is against with natural psychology and is in sympathy with phenomenological psychology.Forth chapter makes supplementary arguments on above conclusions from pros and cons by combining the analysis of Logic of Humanities and the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms(Vol.4),and further points out that thematization of intentional psychology is inherently necessary requirement of Cassirer's philosophical thought.