人还是文化？--对卡西尔《人论》中心论点的推究

摘要

《人论》一书旨在论人，作者卡西尔却花大量篇幅探讨人类文化，这种看似本末倒置的做法使得进一步推究《人论》的中心论点，彻底厘清人与文化的关系变得尤为重要。认识自我是人类哲学的终极命题，卡西尔的《人论》是回答“人是什么？”这一问题的伟大尝试；人类最突出的特征是劳作，人类通过劳作创造出种种文化形式，文化是认识人的重要途径；人类的文化形式其实是符号形式，符号是沟通人和文化的桥梁。卡西尔在《人论》中探讨的人是文化的人，也是符号的人。人、文化、符号是三位一体的有机整体。%Although Cassirer’s book An Essay on Manis aimed at arguing about man, the author uses a lot of space to explore human culture. This approach appears to be putting the cart before the horse. Therefore, it becomes particularly important to further examine the central argument ofAn Essay on Man and to clarify the relationship between human and culture. Knowing self is the ultimate proposition of human philosophy. Cassirer’sAn Essay on Man makes a great attempt to answer the question “what is man?”. Humans create a variety of cultural forms by laboring, which is the most prominent feature of humans; so culture is an important way to know man. Cultural forms are actually symbolic forms. Symbols are the bridge connecting humans and culture. Man discussed in Cassirer’s An Essay on Man is one of culture and of symbol. Man, culture and symbol are an organic whole.