卡西尔符号形式哲学的伦理观念

On the Ethical Ideas of Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

在政治神话研究中,卡西尔强调了人类文化活动的能动性特征,表达了人类积极参与文化生活的主体精神,这样一种精神同样是他在文化形式研究中所坚持的伦理观念。在卡西尔看来,只有将人定义为符号的动物,才能指明人的独特之处,才能理解对人开放的新路——通向文化之路。通过对蕴含在文化概念中的基本伦理问题的考察,卡西尔在符号形式中解答了人类劳作的最终归宿问题,即理性的自由。

In the study of political myth,Cassirer laid great emphasis on the dynamic characteristics of human cultural activities and expressed the active role of human spirit involving in cultural life; Such a spirit is also the ethical ideas he adhered to in the study of cultural forms. In Cassirer＇s view,only defining man as a symbolic animal,can we reveal the unique characteristics of human and understand the new road which is open to human—the road to culture. Through the investigation of the basic ethical issues contained in the cultural concepts,Cassirer answers the ultimate question of human labor in symbolic form,namely,the freedom of reason.