Abstract

The nature of this work is to show that we humans live in a symbolic world of our own making. We have chosen theoreticians Ernst Cassirer and Immanuel Kant to provide the theoretical formulation for why this must be so. We have chosen the Lakota culture to show how one culture exhibits this formation of a symbolic world around a central symbol. This phenomenon in Lakota culture would support the type of universal thought process toward which Kant and Cassirer are pointing. ;The Lakotas have a central symbol, the Sacred Pipe. It is this symbol that allows them to organize their world. The symbol of the pipe is accompanied by rules of conduct that teach how to observe the proper relationship to all living things. In another sense, the pipe functions as an ordering device for the user to define the center of the physical universe. ;Kant and Cassirer can provide the framework for understanding why this is so. The thought process is ordering wherever it occurs. We organize our world because we cannot do otherwise. We live in a world of laws that we discover and create because we cannot live in chaos. Symbols are one vehicle for accomplishing this task, since with symbols we can give our world meaning and create form, defining for ourselves the reality about us. Symbols also obey the general rule of thought--which is to unify. We live in a symbolic world of our own creation due to the necessary ordering process of thought. ;The project is thus two-fold. It allows us to examine the symbolic formation process in Lakota culture in detail, as well as the theoretical foundation given for symbolic formation by Ernst Cassirer built upon Kant's theory of knowledge