Cassirer, Ernst - The 'Principle of Concrescence' and 'das Lebensgeftihl'
The 'Principle of Concrescence' and 'das Lebensgeftihl'
Cassirer's reading of anthropological literature led him at first to the conclusion, shared by many in his time, that the thinking of primitive man was flatly irrational. This was evidenced by the anarchy of myths, totemic associations and other manifestations of mythical thinking. For one thing, it seemed that anything could happen in myths—any relationships could be posited between elements in a mythical story: 'Whereas scientific cognition can combine elements only by differentiating them in the same basic critical act, myth seems to roll everything it touches into unity without distinction. Or, in particular connection with the notion of class membership, such as in totemism, Cassirer says, 'In mythical thinking, any similarity of sensuous manifestation suffices to group the entities n which it appears into a single mythical "genus". Any characteristic … is as good as another.…'
Thus, if...
[The entire page is 903 words long]
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