Abstract

The paper offers a systematic historical analysis of the origins, the meaning and the extension of the basic concept of Cassirer´s philosophy of the later period, seen from various points of view. Its main object is Cassirer's essay of 1921, in which his only explicit definition oh this concept can be find. Further the author examines, to what extent the philosophy of symbolic forms turned away from the "orthodox" neokantism , as well as the impact the discussions of the nature and status of Geisteseissenschaften had on Cassirer´s articulation of the universal symbolist philosophy of culture