Symbolic Forms For A New Humanity: Cultural And Racial Reconfigurations Of Critical Theory (just Ideas)
by Drucilla Cornell /
2010 / English / PDF
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In dialogue with afro-caribbean philosophy, this book seeks in
Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms a new vocabulary for
approaching central intellectual and political issues of our time.
For Cassirer, what makes humans unique is that we are symbolizing
creatures destined to come into a world through varied
symbolicforms; we pluralistically work with and develop these forms
as we struggle to come to terms with who we are and our place in
the universe.This approach can be used as a powerful challenge to
hegemonic modes of study that mistakenly place the Western world at
the center of intellectual and political life. Indeed, the authors
argue that the symbolic dimension of Cassirer's thinking of
possibility can be linked to a symbolic dimension in revolution via
the ideas of Frantz Fanon, who argued that revolution must be a
thoroughgoing cultural process, in which what isat stake is nothing
less than how we symbolize a new humanity and bring into being a
new set of social institutions worthy of that new humanity.
In dialogue with afro-caribbean philosophy, this book seeks in
Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms a new vocabulary for
approaching central intellectual and political issues of our time.
For Cassirer, what makes humans unique is that we are symbolizing
creatures destined to come into a world through varied
symbolicforms; we pluralistically work with and develop these forms
as we struggle to come to terms with who we are and our place in
the universe.This approach can be used as a powerful challenge to
hegemonic modes of study that mistakenly place the Western world at
the center of intellectual and political life. Indeed, the authors
argue that the symbolic dimension of Cassirer's thinking of
possibility can be linked to a symbolic dimension in revolution via
the ideas of Frantz Fanon, who argued that revolution must be a
thoroughgoing cultural process, in which what isat stake is nothing
less than how we symbolize a new humanity and bring into being a
new set of social institutions worthy of that new humanity.