APPENDIX II

Ernst Cassirer: Philosophy of Symbolic Forms.
Part Two: Mythical Thought. Berlin, 1925

This second volume of Cassirer’s major work is dedicated to the memory of Paul Natorp. The title, “Mythical Thought,” could be misleading, however, in suggesting that the dominant theme of the investigation is to be found in a separation of the mythical thought process from the purely logical. Instead, precisely the insufficiency of mythical “thinking” as a “process of understanding” is to be brought to light by demonstrating that it is grounded in a specific “form of life” in unity with an accompanying “form of intuition.” “Thought” here means nothing less than an “attending and intending” [“Sinnen und Trachten“] which, however, is still its own “form of thought” (its own way of interpreting and determining). The intent of the investigation is accordingly to pursue the uncovering of “myth” as an original possibility of human Dasein, which has its own proper truth. With this way of posing the question, Cassirer explicitly takes up Schelling’s insight, that “namely everything in it (in ‘mythology’) is to be understood in the way that it is said, and not as if something else is being thought, or something else is being said” (Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie. S. W. 2. Abt. I, 195). Myth, the “destiny of a people” (Schelling), is an “Objective process,” to which Dasein itself remains subordinated, and in opposition to which it can become free, but never in such a way that it rejects this process. If Cassirer does indeed hold to this basic insight of Schelling, and sees in myth “not a weakness of spirit,” not a mere appearance, but rather a proper “formative force,” he nevertheless grasps the task of a philosophy of myth in a way that differs from Schelling’s speculative metaphysics. An empirical psychological “explanation” of myth is certainly never capable of attaining a philosophical understanding. Accordingly, in holding to the “Objectivity” of myth and in rejecting the psychological interpretation, Cassirer attempts a “phenomenology of mythical consciousness.” This presents itself as an extension of the transcendental problematic in the neo-Kantian sense: to conceive of the unity of “culture,” and not only “nature,” as the lawfulness of spirit. The “Objectivity” of myth lies in its properly understood “subjectivity”; myth is its own spiritual “creative principle of world formation” (p. 19) [The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Part 2: Mythical Thought, tr. R. Mannheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), p. 14. Hereafter cited as Symbolic Forms — tr.].

In accord with this starting point that is outlined in the Introduction (pp. 1-36) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 1-26], Cassirer interprets myth as a “form of thought” (Section I, pp. 39-91) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 27-70], as a “form of intuition” (Section II, pp. 95-188) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 71-151], as a “form of life” (Section Ill, pp. 191-285) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 153-231]. He brings everything to a close by offering an account of the “dialectic of mythical consciousness” (Section IV, pp. 289-320) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 233-261].

The analysis of the mythical form of thought begins with a general characterization of the manner in which objects come to stand in opposition to mythical consciousness. The consciousness of the objects of mathematical physics as it is conceived in Cohen’s Kant interpretation serves to guide this characterization: the active formation of a passively given “chaos of sensations” into a “cosmos.” A basic feature of the mythical consciousness of Objects lies in the fact that a demarcated boundary is lacking between what is dreamt of and what is experienced while awake, between what is merely imagined and what is perceived, between image and the object that is formed in the image, between word (meaning) and thing, between what is merely wished for and what is actually possessed, and between what is living and what is dead. Everything remains in one uniform level of Being that is immediately present, by which mythical Dasein is dazed. This consciousness of objects is entitled to its own peculiar and sufficient “explanation” and “understanding.” The co-presence of something with something else “gives” the explanation: the swallow produces the summer. This bringing-with-itself [Mitsichbringen] has the character of magical power (see below). What functions here as producer [Mitbringer] is not simply random, it is determined from out of the basic connectedness that orients the magical experience. As arbitrary as these magical “actual connections” may appear, for example, to a theoretical consideration of nature, they nevertheless have their own truth. Mythical thought does not know the analytical division of the actual into causal sequences. The interweaving of the magically real becomes clearly evident in the conception of the relationship between whole and part. The part “is” the whole itself, which means it has the undiminished magical power of the whole. Each “thing” bears in itself its belonging to other things within the whole of magical forces. In mythical thinking what holds is “the law of the concrescence and coincidence of the relational parts” (p. 83) [Symbolic Forms, p. 64].

In the second section Cassirer shows the effect this form of thought has on the understanding of space, time and number. A chapter precedes this “mythical doctrine of forms” that is entitled: “The Basic Opposition” [Grundgegensatz] (pp. 95-106) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 73-82]. The characterization of the mythical consciousness of objects already showed how mythical Dasein is captivated by what is present, dazed and overwhelmed. Presence means the overpowering. Herein lies the character of what is extraordinary, incomparable, over and against the everyday. But this is not a nihil negativum. It has indeed its own character of Being, namely that of the “common,” within the horizon of the overwhelmingly uncommon. This “basic division” between the sacred and the profane is the basic articulation of the actual, to which mythical Dasein “comports” itself, whatever that being in its constitution may be. This character of the Being of the mythical “world” and mythical Dasein itself is the meaning of the mana-representation which has continued over the last few centuries to stand out more clearly in mythological research as one, if not even the basic category of mythical “thinking.” Mana does not designate a determinate circle of Objects. It also cannot be attributed to certain “spiritual” powers. The mana is the most general character of Being, the “how” whereby what is actual suddenly comes over the entirety of human Dasein. The expressions “mana,” “wakanda,” “orenda,” “manitu” are interjections within the immediacy of being overtaken by threatening by beings (p. 98ff., 195f., 228) [Symbolic Forms, p. 76ff., 158f., 185] [See also E. Cassirer, Sprache und Mythos. Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, 1925, p. 52ff. [Language and Myth, tr. Susanne Langer (New York: Dover & Harper, 1946)]. Here there is a still more transparent interpretation of the mana-representation in the context of the problem of language.]

In the original being dazed by what is actual as the mana, mythical Dasein carries out the articulation of the dimensions in which Dasein as such always already moves: the interpretation and “determination” of space, time, and number. The specifically mythical modalization of these “representations” is also characterized by the author in constant contrast to the conceptual interpretation that these phenomena have undergone in modern mathematical-physical knowledge.

The “basic feeling of the sacred” and the “basic division” that is given along with it prefigure both the total comprehension of space as well as the way in which individual boundaries are posited within it. The original partitioning of space, in which it is first of all uncovered as such, distinguishes two “regions”: a “sacred,” extraordinary, appropriately preserved and protected region, and a “common” region that is at all times accessible to everyone. Space is, however, never given prior to this “in itself,” in such a way that it can then be mythically “interpreted.” Rather, mythical Dasein first of all discovers space as such in this manner. The mythical spatial orientation is thereby guided everywhere by the opposition between day and night, which for its part announces itself primarily mythically, that is, in the specific mana-like power that forces all Dasein into its binding spell. To the extent that spatiality, thus uncovered, co-determines in general a possible habitat for Dasein, space and its corresponding factical division can become a schema for the most manifold traits of Dasein (consider, for example, the complicated classification of the totemistic perceptual sphere). Mythical Dasein procures for itself in this way a uniform overall orientation that can be easily mastered.

Time is still more originally constitutive for mythical Dasein than space. Cassirer grounds the characterization of these connections in the vulgar concept of time and understands by the “temporal” character of myth “being-within-time” — for example, of the gods. The “sacredness” of the mythically actual is determined by its origin. The past as such shows itself as the genuine and last ‘why’ of all beings. In the periodicity of the seasons, in the rhythm of the phases of life and age, the power of time is made evident. The individual sections of time are “sacred times.” The comportment toward them, far from being a mere calculation, is regulated by particular cults and rites (for example, initiation rites). The order of time, as an order of destiny, is a cosmic power and thus makes manifest in its regularity a binding obligation that pervades all human practice. Calendrical regulation and ethical obligation are welded to the power of time. The basic mythical-religious relation to time can then especially accentuate an individual time orientation. The individual modifications of the different feelings of time and the conceptions of time that are prefigured in these make up “one of the most profound differences in the character of individual religions.” Cassirer shows (p. 150ff.) [Symbolic Forms, p. 119ff.] in broad strokes the typical images of time that are found in the Hebrews, the Persians, the Indians, in Chinese and Egyptian religion, and in Greek philosophy.

Numbering and the relations of number are also understood in mythical Dasein from out of the character of the all of everything which is, from out of the power. Each number has its “individual physiognomy,” its own magical power. What is equally numbered presents itself as one and the same essence — without regard to whether there is nevertheless a fundamental difference — according to the principle of concrescence: “all magic is for the most part number magic” (p. 178) [Symbolic Forms, p. 144]. Numbered determinateness does not mean ordering in a sequence, but rather belonging to a determinate domain of the uncommon. The number is the mediator that connects the whole of mythical actuality to the unity of a power-full world order. As manifold as the forms of the mythical doctrine of numbers may be, and as different as the ways of mythically emphasizing the distinctiveness of individual numbers (for example, three or seven) may be, certain original prefigurations for the making sacred of individual numbers can nevertheless be indicated on the basis of the particular kind of mythical spatiality and temporality: the number four becomes sacred, for example, because of the regions of the sky. Furthermore, the sacredness of the number seven goes back to the power of time, which is made evident in the phases of the moon, through a division by four of the twenty-eight-day month that presents itself on its own to intuition, as it were. In the distinctive emphasis placed mythically upon the number three, one sees, on the other hand, the originally personal relation between father, mother, and child coming through, just as the dual and trinal forms in language refer back to the relation between I, you, and he. Binding these originally powerful relations to numbers is something that remains itself utterly bound to having the character of the mythically efficacious.

From the analysis of the mythical Object-world and its way of being discovered and determined, the inquiry then turns toward “subjective actuality” and its unveiling in myth. Cassirer begins this discussion with a fundamental and biting critique of “animism,” which still dominates in the most diverse ways the investigations of ethnological research. The world of mythical Dasein cannot simply be interpreted on the basis of the prevailing conceptions of the soul; for then the “subject” as such still remains veiled. To the extent that mythical Dasein is familiar with itself at all, it does not interpret itself solely in relation to a world that is grasped purely in terms of things. Object [Objekt] and subject and the relation between them is understood by mythical Dasein within the horizon of what makes itself evident as the the general character of the actual, that is, it is understood in terms of mana. What has to be shown here is precisely how mythical Dasein, which in its “indeterminate life-feeling” remains bound to all beings, enacts a “confrontation” between world and I that is proper to it, rooted in its own specific way of being, i.e., in its “doing.” The sphere of the actual that is primarily discovered and delimited in doing, in a peculiar reflecting back upon doing itself, makes doing visible in its different “capabilities.” Within the horizon of magical power one’s own doing is a magical act. “The first force [Kraft] by means of which the human places himself as something proper and independent over and against things is the force of wish [Wunsch]” (p. 194) [Symbolic Forms, p. 157]. “The abundance of divine forms that the human creates for himself not only serves to guide it through the sphere of objective being and events but rather above all through the sphere of its own will and accomplishment and illuminates this sphere from within” (p. 251) [Symbolic Forms, p. 203]. The further process of the unveiling of “subjectivity” and its ways of comportment is carried out in the transition from nature-myths to culture-myths, until finally, in the more or less magic-free manipulation of tools, the Being-connected between things becomes manifest on its own terms as independent. The human thereby frees itself from being magically bound to things and in a retreat from the world lets that world be encountered “Objectively.”

Just as the subject does not discover itself in the emergence and return of things that stand purely over and against it, neither is it the case that a divided I-You relationship, or any such form of community, is primarily constitutive for the unveiling of subjectivity. Totemism, which is improperly posited as the grounding phenomenon of mythical Dasein, cannot be explained sociologically. Instead, all social divisions and the individuals that are given along with them, require, like totemism itself, a “grounding” developed from out of the original way of Being of mythical Dasein and the mana-representation that dominates it. The proper problem of totemism lies in the fact that not only the human as such stands in a certain inextricable relation to the animal or the plant, but that each particular group has its own particular totemic animal. Farmers, herdsmen, and hunters each discover themselves in reference to plants and animals in a way that is peculiar to each and that makes itself evident immediately as a magical affiliation. At the same time, however, this reference makes it possible, in a reflecting back, for the pertinent human life spheres to become explicit as such. Totemism is not caused by particular kinds of plants and animals but rather emerges from out of the elementary Dasein-relations of the human to its world.

Only when things are grounded in the mana-representation does it then also become possible to conceive how individual self-consciousness takes shape and how the “concept” of the soul comes to be articulated. What is later conceptually distinguished as body and soul, or life and death, is indeed also always already actual for mythical Dasein but in the mode of magical power, according to which what is dead also is, and a force of the soul makes itself known even when the human met with is not encountered bodily. Only in the unity of magical efficacy can the individual forces of the soul or the individual “souls” appear as split apart and dwell along side one another. Correspondingly the “development” of individual Dasein is also distributed among different subjects, between which determinate transitions take place. In its being threatened by magical powers, mythical Dasein’s “own” soul stands as an “alien” power over and against it. Even where the representation of protective spirits is awakened, one’s own self is still a power, as it were, which protectively takes up the individual I. Only first at higher levels does the magical daemon become daimonion and genius, in such a way that Dasein in the end comes to determine itself not as an alien power but rather from out of that for which it is freely capable, from itself and for itself as an ethical subject.

If the power and uncommonness of the divine primarily and thoroughly dominates mythical Dasein, then the basic comportment to actuality can never be a mere intuition but is rather in like manner an actualizing that takes on the form of cult and rite. All mythical narration is always only a derivative report of sacred dealings. In these sacred dealings, in contrast, mythical Dasein presents itself immediately. The earlier the cult takes shape, the more sacrifice assumes a central position. Sacrifice is indeed a renunciation, but at the same time it is still a dealing that is enacted by oneself which prepares the way for a certain release from the exclusive power of magical forces. Therein, however, the free power of Dasein is exposed and at the same time the cleft between the human and the divine widens, so as to demand at a higher level a renewed overcoming.

In this way, myth becomes visible as a unified autonomous formative power. Mythic shapes display an inner dialectic in which earlier forms are expanded and transformed but not simply rejected. The mythical “process” carries itself out in Dasein itself without reflection. When this process has run through its possibilities, it itself comes up against its own overcoming. Cassirer seeks to show this dialectic in the different positions that myth assumes toward its own world-image (p. 290) [Symbolic Forms, p. 235].

This brief account has to forego even a slight treatment of the rich ethnological and religious historical material that grounds Cassirer’s interpretation of myth and that he works into the individual analyses with his unique talent for perspicacious and apt presentation. In making available to the author its extensive and rare collections, as well as and especially the use of its entire facilities, the Warburg library in Hamburg provided exceptional assistance in the work (Foreword, p. xiii) [Symbolic Forms, p. xviii]. Among the analyses of mythical phenomena, especially noteworthy are those dealing with the function of the tool in the unveiling of Object-world, and those dealing with sacrifice (p. 273ff.) [Symbolic Forms, p. 221ff.].

Our approach to the philosophy of myth outlined here must pursue three points. First, it must be asked: What does this interpretation achieve for the grounding and guiding of the positive sciences of mythical Dasein (ethnology and the history of religion)? Then it becomes necessary to examine the foundations and methodological principles that support the philosophical analysis of the essence of myth. And finally, the basic question arises concerning the constitutive function of myth in human Dasein and in the all of beings as such.

With regard to the first question, Cassirer’s work proves itself to be a fruitful success. It brings the problematic of the positive research into myth to a fundamentally higher level by carrying out in a variety of ways the demonstration that myth can never be “explained” by having recourse to determinate spheres of Objects within the mythical world. The critique that is directed in this way against the naturalistic, totemistic, animistic, and sociological attempts at explanation is thoroughly unambiguous and devastating. This critique, for its part, is grounded in the anticipatory determination of myth as one functional form [Funktionsform] of spirit, having its own laws. If this conception of myth can prevail in empirical research, then secure guidance has been gained both for the initial appropriation and interpretation of newly discovered material as well as for the elaboration and exploration of already established results.

Yet if this interpretation of myth is to be judged not only with regard to what it achieves as a guide in the positive sciences but also with regard to its own philosophical content, then the following questions arise: is the predetermination of myth as a functional form of creative consciousness adequately grounded on its own terms? Where are the foundations for such an admittedly unavoidable grounding to be found? Are the foundations themselves sufficiently secured and elaborated? Cassirer’s grounding of his guiding predetermination of myth as a creative force [bildender Kraft] of spirit (“symbolic form”) is essentially an appeal to Kant’s “Copernican revolution,” according to which all “actuality” is to be considered as a formation of productive consciousness.