{"title":"Organic Harmony and Ernst Cassirer’s Pluralism","authors":"Shuchen Xiang","doi":"10.5840/idstudies20191023105","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that Cassirer’s thinking about the relationship between the different symbolic forms is best elucidated via the paradigm of “organic harmony.” Although Cassirer did not use the term himself, the harmonious cooperation between the parts found in the organic world provided him with a welcome alternative to traditional accounts of order (i.e., identity or hierarchy). This article gives three examples of “organic harmony” from which Cassirer drew inspiration: Goethe’s idealistic morphology, Wilhelm von Humboldt’s account of language, and Herder’s account of history. Through “organic harmony” we can make better sense of and better articulate the pluralism of Cassirer’s PSF. Finally, this article shows how the motif of organic harmony is the normative moment in Cassirer’s own challenge to twentieth-century fascism and argues that the Cassirerian emphasis on finding a coherence which does justice to the uniqueness of particulars—harmony—is an ethical injunction relevant for our times.","PeriodicalId":41879,"journal":{"name":"IDEALISTIC STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2019-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"IDEALISTIC STUDIES","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5840/idstudies20191023105","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
This article argues that Cassirer’s thinking about the relationship between the different symbolic forms is best elucidated via the paradigm of “organic harmony.” Although Cassirer did not use the term himself, the harmonious cooperation between the parts found in the organic world provided him with a welcome alternative to traditional accounts of order (i.e., identity or hierarchy). This article gives three examples of “organic harmony” from which Cassirer drew inspiration: Goethe’s idealistic morphology, Wilhelm von Humboldt’s account of language, and Herder’s account of history. Through “organic harmony” we can make better sense of and better articulate the pluralism of Cassirer’s PSF. Finally, this article shows how the motif of organic harmony is the normative moment in Cassirer’s own challenge to twentieth-century fascism and argues that the Cassirerian emphasis on finding a coherence which does justice to the uniqueness of particulars—harmony—is an ethical injunction relevant for our times.
期刊介绍:
Idealistic Studies provides a peer-reviewed forum for the discussion of themes and topics that relate to the tradition and legacy of philosophical Idealism. Established in 1971 as a vehicle for American Personalism and post-Kantian Idealism, the journal"s purview now includes historically earlier expressions, as well as the inheritance of that past in the developments of late 19th to mid-20th century philosophy. The journal has also become a venue for a number of philosophical movements that share Idealism in their genealogies, including Phenomenology, Neo-Kantianism, Historicism, Hermeneutics, Life Philosophy, Existentialism, and Pragmatism.