Ernst Cassirer as a Pupil of Hermann Cohen : From Neo-Kantianism to Jewish Platonism

Hermann Cohen had a crucial influence on Ernst Cassirer. In this article we shall recall three interpretations of Cohen's work that Cassirer offered in the progressing of his own thinking: in the first, he underlines the novelty and fruitfulness of the transcendental method as described by Cohen in his books on Kant's criticism; in the second, he emphasizes the link of Cohen's writings not only with Kant, but also with Plato's idealism and a Jewish philosophy of religion; and in the third, he highlights how Cohen was a fierce critic of myth in his Jewish philosophy of religion, while explaining the role of Judaism in the history of religions and cultures and its meaning in the ethico-political field.

We shall also try to show how Cassirer's own work – from his youthful publication on Descartes and Leibniz up to the posthumous book The Myth of the State – was inspired by these three interpretations of Cohen's work. If Kant is the author who at first guides Cassirer in his philosophical research, by the end Plato and the Prophets appear as his main sources. [Publisher's text]