Zwischen Relativismus und Fundamentalismus : Ernst Cassirers Philosophie als Antwort auf die Krise des Normativen

Metaphorical descriptions of an age of uncertainty or contingency havelong been among the standard interpretations of the present. Closely connected to this is the frequent diagnosis of a crisis of normativity. In academicdiscourse, this crisis is often attributed to the prominence of poststructuralistand social-constructivist theories. The belief associated withthese approaches in the relativity and transformability of our lifeworld, sothe charge goes, has left no plausible criteria of judgment and is reflectedtoday in debates on post-truth or populism. Between an anti-fundamentalistcritique that no longer recognizes objective standards and a fundamentalismthat defines natural laws or human and social properties as ultimateanchors, no middle ground seems to remain.

Ernst Cassirer's work offersa productive response to this situation. Early on, he anticipated insightslater associated with the “linguistic turn” without lapsing into relativism.Cassirer adheres to the idea of an objective spirit and conceives of objectivitynot as something naturally given but as the result of the mind'sprocesses of objectification — as a product of reflexivity and imagination.Thus, as this article argues, the relationship between fundamentalism andrelativism is inverted: what is objective is no longer what is naturally given,but what is — broadly speaking — produced through reflexivity andimagination. [Publisher's text]

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