The Symbol Concept I

Abstract

The term “symbolic form” is employed by Cassirer in at least three distinct, though related, meanings:

• (1) It covers what is often referred to as the “symbol concept’, the “symbolic function” or simply the “symbolic” (das Symbolische).

• (2) It denotes the variety of cultural forms which — as myth, religion, language and science — exemplify the realms of application for the symbol-concept.

• (3) It is applied to space, time, cause, number, etc., all of which — as the most pervasive “symbolic relations” — are said to constitute such domains of “objectivity” as listed under (2).