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17 L. & Critique 1 (2006)

handle is hein.journals/lwcrtq17 and id is 1 raw text is: Law and Critique (2006) 17: 1-26 © Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s10978-005-5622-1 DENIZ COSKUN CASSIRER IN DAVOS. AN INTERMEZZO ON MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1929) ABSTRACT. The Davos-debate between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger at Davos in 1929 has proved a landmark in the history of twentieth century philosophy. The debate not only marked the end of the heyday of continental Neo-Kantian philosophy, but influenced, although in implicit ways, legal and political theory as well. At various levels of discourse, philosophical, moral philosophical, and that of legal and political philosophy, in the first half of the twentieth century Cassirer acted as the advocate of what remained of the old European humanist tradition. Heidegger, on the contrary, acted as the exponent of the emerging existentialist, anti- humanist movement that would soon supplant the old tradition in significance and force. This is an account of an imaginary encounter between two traditions, so that the clash of their opposing forces may shed sparks on a (still) dark era in Western philosophical history. The conclusion sums up the lessons or wisdom to be learned for political and legal theory. KEY WORDS: Cassirer, Davos, Heidegger, law as symbolic form, Neo-Kantianism INTRODUCTION Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) was a German philosopher who started as an exponent of the Marburg School (of Neo-Kantianism), but gradually created an original philosophical position of his own, i.e., the philosophy of symbolic forms.1 Cassirer did not intend his phi- losophy of symbolic forms to be a new philosophy; rather it was for him a new way to approach philosophy. With this approach, Cassirer sought to initiate a transformation of Kant's Critique of Reason into a Critique of Culture, a prolegomenon to a (future) philosophy of culture. Commonly regarded as one of the giants in the philosophy of the first half of the twentieth century, Cassirer more or less disap- peared from philosophical discourse after the Second World War. E. Cassirer, Die Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, 3 Bdn. (Bruno Cassirer Verlag, 1923-1929).