Abstract

Reading Cassirer’s philosophy of myth: early signs of Heidegger’s late philosophy? In 1928, Heidegger’s book review of the second volume of Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (The Mythical Thought) was published in the Deutsche Literaturzeitung. Cassirer’s text date of 1925, hence it is possible that Heidegger had read it even before the publication of Being and Time. What makes both texts worthy of a closer examination is the fact that several central motifs and terms of Heidegger’s later philosophy are already present in these two texts. Heidegger focuses particularly on Cassirer’s reflections on the representation of mana (Mana-Vorstellung) in mythical thinking. This representation involves not only the distinction between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the ‘uncanniness’ or ‘not-at-homeness’ that befalls mightily the Dasein, but also the distinction between the sacred and the profane and that of the four world regions (Weltgegenden) and its organization in form of a cross. Although not everything that Heidegger announces is interpretable as full awareness of the future impact of these traces, one would wonder if the density with which they appear would be mere accident. Thus, the article contributes to the debate on the issue of the emerging of Heidegger’s late thought and its origins which can be traced back to the stage of genesis, or rather, the final draft of Being and Time.