Substantiation of the cultural-semiotic approach to history in Ernst
Kassirer’s philosophy

Substantiation of the cultural-semiotic approach to history in Ernst
Kassirer’s philosophy
Авторы (текстом)
I. V. Demin
Samara State University
Keywords
semiotics, history, semiotics of history, philosophy of history, philosophy of symbolic forms, Cassirer
Abstract

In the article Ernst Kassirer’s views on the nature of the historiography
and the specifics of historical knowledge are analyzed. General philosophical
prerequisites of the cultural-semiotic approach to history are revealed.
Parallels with the interpretation of history in the philosophical concepts of
Rickert and Gadamer are held. Historiography and storytelling in Cassirer’s
concept is a tool for studying human nature and a form of self-knowledge. The
notion of a historical fact in Cassirer’s philosophy of culture is understood in a
new way. The historical fact, unlike the fact of the natural sciences, is not the
starting point, but the result of the cognitive activity of the historian. The historical
fact in the process of interpretation and reinterpretation of historical sources
is constructed. The historical fact is always the answer to the historian’s question.
The activity of a historian with the activities of a philologist and linguist,
rather than a naturalist, has similarities. The fundamental difference between
historical knowledge and the natural sciences, according to Cassirer, is not in
the way of the formation of scientific concepts, but in the very nature of historical
fact is revealed. Ernst Cassirer the thesis about the symbolic nature of historical
reality substantiated, he also the significant ideas of the post-metaphysical
philosophy of history of the second half of the 20th century anticipated.

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Bibliographic reference
I. V. Demin Substantiation of the cultural-semiotic approach to history in Ernst
Kassirer’s philosophy
// Критика и семиотика. 2017. № 2. Pp. 256–269.