Abstract

This dissertation develops and defends the notion that Cassirer's work on myth forms an organized, systematic whole. It attempts to reconcile his later writings on the reappearance of myth in the twentieth century with his earlier work on mythical thought by arguing that Cassirer himself was working toward a new level of unity to be found in his understanding of the "basis phenomena." ;Cassirer, as I show, put myth at the center of his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, making it the original and primary form from which all the other symbolic forms emerge. He also professed a philosophy of history where powerful recurring cultural forces are pitted against each other. Given these two factors, Cassirer should not have been shocked to see myth reappear as he does seem to profess in The Myth of the State. In fact, as I demonstrate, his system certainly can account for the recurrence of myth---even in the novel forms in which it appears. ;The way I interpret Cassirer, he has given us three accounts of myth: the epistemological, the biological and the historical. These three accounts, I argue, can be seen to correspond to the three realms of the basis phenomena, the "I", the "thou," and the "work"; and this broader framework, with its Goethian origins, provides the ground for a new systematic evaluation of The Myth of the State. ;This dissertation is divided into three main sections in which I develop each of these three interpretations. First, I provide a transcendental profile of myth as a form of thought. Then I examine myth as a life form where we look at the specifically mythical form of perception, which is expression. Finally, I present a curriculum vitae of myth, showing how history and philosophy come together in the thought of Ernst Cassirer