Discussion On Cassirer's View Of Human Nature With Cultural Criticism

"The nature of Human" has always been concerned about and controversed in the area of western philosophy, the German philosopher-Ernst·Cassirer put forward the theoretical perspective- "humans are symbolic animals," from his unique view , he made "symbol "as the distinction between human and animal. What's more, Cassirer also thought that the process of humanity development is just the process of cultural creation, so human, symbol and culture were combined together, which created a new window to study humanity theory.The creationary departments in Cassirer's humanity nature are its perspective from symbol and culture , that is, human is not only the animal using symbols, but also the animal who can always create new kinds of culture. In the view of Cassirer, symbol is the fundamental distinction between human and animal, the uniqueness of humanity lies in human's useing symbols to develop and improve their own humanity continuously, symbolic character is full of all of the activities of human,it is the most notable characteristic in Cassirer's theory of human nature. The cultural character lies in: human can not only use symbols, but can also create many cultural forms such as myth, religion, language, art, history, science and so on , the humanity nature is improved constantly as the development of these specific cultural forms, in the other words, the true nature of human exists in the activities of constant cultural creation, which is just the meaning of cultural criticism in Cassirer's theory of haman nature.The full text is divided into four parts:The first part introduces influential humanity theory in the history ;The second part introduces the focus of the humanity - symbol and discusses the meaning of Cassirer's humanity theory in detail, The third part, focusing on the specific cultural forms- mythology, religion, language, art, history, science, embodies the character of cultural critical in Cassirer's humanity theory; The fourth part is the summary of the full text, the humanity theory of Cassirer is reflected in the Perspective of Marxist philosophy, which is the center of the part.