Original scientific paper

Semiotic Worldmaking: Cassirer – Goodman

Joško Žanić

Abstract

The paper discusses the constructivist positions of Ernst Cassirer and Nelson Goodman, according to which the world is never simply given, rather, it is made by the semiotic, symbolic activity of the mind, taking primarily into consideration Cassirer’s work Philosophy of Symbolic Forms and Goodman’s Ways of Worldmaking. The initial impetus for such a view is Kant’s accent on the spontaneity of thinking, developed by Cassirer in the framework of a general theory of symbols, which then influenced Goodman. The paper analyses the influences, similarities and differences in the approaches of these authors, takes also into account the views of the French semiotician Greimas and the contemporary German philosopher G. Abel, and it points to the difficulties that constructivism faces, both those that arise from the conflict with the opposing view, namely realism, as well as those that are immanent to the constructivist conception itself.

Keywords

Immanuel Kant; Ernst Cassirer; Nelson Goodman; constructivism; reality; culture; semiotics; symbolic form

Hrčak ID:

23147

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/23147

Publication date:

7.4.2008.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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