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Enquist Källgren, Karolina

System or form : Cassirer and Ortega's debate on the nature of knowledge and history

2021 - Bibliopolis

P. 171-184

  • In this article I examine the different views on structure or form in history found within the works of José Ortega y Gasset and Ernst Cassirer. I ask on what grounds both took turns in presenting a respectful critique of each other's ideas of structures in history, not the least because they sometimes employed the same or similar concepts to the discuss the issue. I show how Ortega criticized what he perceived to be the all too ideal interpretation of Cassirer's functional law-fullness, and instead postulated that any valid historical form had to include the experience of a living individual. Cassirer on the other hand felt that this was not systematic enough. I propose that their differences lay in the way they perceived of the validity of form in history, as well as in the extend and way in which these historical forms were material as well as forms of cognition. Finally, they also disagreed on the temporality of history, and in what way it developed towards the future. [Publisher's text]

Is part of

Cassirer studies : XIII/XIV, 2020/2021