Chapter 11 - Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape

Summary

In the final chapter, Sebastian Luft revisits Michael Friedman's famous claim that Cassirer's philosophical vision has the potential to overcome the split between analytic and continental philosophy. This chapter first formulates some criteria for a post-split philosophy, namely a balance between historical sensitivity and systematic focus, a priori and empirical truths, conceptual analysis and descriptive synthesis, and exegesis and jargon. Next, Luft shows why and how Cassirer's thought lives up to each of these criteria in his own writings as well as in characteristic discussions with some of his contemporaries, in particular Husserl and Heidegger. The conclusion of this chapter explains how Cassirer combines these criteria by installing the interdependence of transcendental idealism and cultural pluralism. Luft presents these as the two most important aspects of Cassirer's work, both in terms of actual cultural practice and the way in which philosophical and scientific scholars account for it.