Enlightenment In Cassirer’s Cultural Philosophy

Enlightenment, both in the West and China, has become a topic discussed byphilosophers. And both a theoretical and ideological" enlightenment" triggered a series ofsocial practice, and promoted the development of societies in different periods. Inparticular, after Kant published the paper Answer the question: What isEnlightenment?,many philosophers refocus attention on this central point. Kant’s answerof the question is to have courage to use your own reason, Kant had also made adistinction on the rational utilization. This reply is in fact an alternative explanation ofself-understanding of human essentially. Therefore, in this concern, since the birth of thehuman is a continuous process of continuous of self-enlightenment and self-understanding.French philosopher Michel Foucault considered that modern philosophy is to reply thequestion:What is enlightenment? As one of the representatives of the neo-Kantian,theGerman philosopher Ernst Cassirer was impossible without paying attention to such aquestion. However, Cassirer’s reply of the question is not direct. He was standing upon theheight of human culture, that by the critique of various components of cultural forms toexplain human nature with such an indirect way to answer this question.German philosopher Ernst Cassirer in the An Essay on Man, gives a definition ofHuman beings that is“Human being is animal of symbol”. This definition can explainspecifically human’s of use symbols to create culture, and in this process people can getself-liberation and freedom. After Kant’s critique of the human reason, Cassirer turn to awider range of Cultural-criticism. In the cultural philosophy of Cassirer he not onlyanalyzed the question of what a man is, and also analyzed the relationship between menand culture. Through the analysis of various forms of culture-mythology, religion,language, art, history, scientific and so on,he want to prove that human culture is theproduct by his own symbolized activities created.Under the perspective of the culturalcriticism, Cassirer resurrected the problem of "What is enlightenment" replied by Kant,and he has a deeper and broader range of answer, and re-interpreted of a crisis ofself-understanding of Human beings. This article focuses on introducing that Cassirer’scritique theory of various cultural forms and self-understanding of human nature, and draw Cassirer’s answer to enlightenment and also to nature of human being themselves.Cassirer consider that men is creating the world through symbols, and enlightenment itselfconstantly in the process of creation, and the process of such creation is unlimited andopen. Thus for Cassirer, enlightenment is an infinite and open process to create culture.