카시러의 상징형식에 대한 체험주의적 해명

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to re-investigate Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms from an experientialist perspective, and to explore the possibility of expanding it in naturalist terms. Cassirer characterizes human being in terms of ‘symbol’ and attempts to account for the nature and structure of symbolic forms systematically. According to Cassirer, symbolization is integral part of mental level of experience which grounds for all the variety of cultural aspects of human life. However, such claim should give rise to a worry about the nihilistic relativism among different cultures. Cassirer suggests that the principle constraining such a relativistic down-slide lies within ourselves as a meaning making structure, and conceptualizes it as ‘symbolic forms’. That is, Cassirer’s symbolic forms are to be found in a priori realm. I will show that such formulation goes against his own anthropological philosophy that he pursues, and will explore the necessity and possibility of re-expanding Cassirer’s philosophy from a naturalist perspective. The main thesis of experientialism on which I heavily draw is that all our experience as a whole is grounded in bodily basis, and again, is expanded to mental and abstract level by means of metaphorical mechanisms, such as metaphor, mytonymy, mental imagery, and prototype effects. The experientialist account of the embodied experience offers two major implications to Cassirer’s philosophy: First, it shows that Cassirer’s notion of symbolic forms can be accounted for in empirical terms. Secondly, it shows that the relativistic down-slide brought about by symbolic act can be properly constrained by the commonality of the bodily and physical level of experience.