This is the first English-language intellectual biography of the German-Jewish philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), a leading figure on the Weimar intellectual scene and one of the last and finest representatives of the liberal-idealist tradition. Edward Skidelsky traces the development of Cassirer's thought in its historical and intellectual setting. He presents Cassirer, the author of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, as a defender of the liberal ideal of culture in an increasingly fragmented world, and as someone who grappled with the opposing forces of scientific positivism and romantic vitalism. Cassirer's work can be seen, Skidelsky argues, as offering a potential resolution to the ongoing conflict between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities--and between the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy. The first comprehensive study of Cassirer in English in two decades, this book will be of great interest to analytic and continental philosophers, intellectual historians, political and cultural theorists, and historians of twentieth-century Germany.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix Introduction 1 CHAPTER ONE: Prologue: The Alienation of Reason 9 CHAPTER TWO: The Marburg School 22 CHAPTER THREE: The New Logic 52 CHAPTER FOUR: Between Irony and Tragedy 71 CHAPTER FIVE: The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms 100 CHAPTER SIX: Logical Positivism 128 CHAPTER SEVEN: The Philosophy of Life 160 CHAPTER EIGHT: Heidegger 195 CHAPTER NINE: Politics 220 NOTES 239 BIBLIOGRAPHY 269 INDEX 281