Reading from _An Essay on Man_(Cassirer) 007

_An Essay on Man_, Cassirer. Bantam Books, NY, January 1970.

Part I: What is Man?

Chapter IV: The Human World of Space and Time.

pp. 46 – 60.

Space and time are the conditions of all experience of reality, and a philosophy of man must begin with an investigation of the specifically human forms of spatial and temporal experience through the indirect analysis of human culture. A hierarchy of types of experience is disclosed by this investigation, beginning with organic space, which characterizes the environmental context of organic survival, adaption and pure instinct. This is the level of action in which humans, due to their dependence on learned behavior, appear to be at a distinct disadvantage in comparison to animals. Next in order, is perceptual space in which the behavior of higher animals rises above instinctive reaction and the various senses are coordinated and combined into an increasingly complex type of awareness that approaches the next level of symbolic space, which is properly human. This stratum is marked by the abstract conception of space which more than compensates for humanity's instinctual shortcomings. Abstract space has, however, been philosophically problematic, and its apparent fictional nature has required a long process of cultural development to make way for the theoretical acceptance of the difference between sensual and abstract space as well as the expansion of the concept of truth to accommodate the reality of symbolically expressed ideal relationships. Early humans lived in a concrete, sensual and thoroughly pragmatic space of action that had primarily emotional significance based on the individual's immediate acquaintance with her surroundings. This direct connection with the lived situation precludes the use of representation which is necessary for the development of the abstract, geometrical concept of space which eliminates the particularity of sensual experience, and establishes the spatial uniformity requisite to the scientific vision of a lawfully operating universe. The first steps in this direction seem to have been made possible by the merger of the Sumerian and Akkadian cultures, from which Babylonian culture emerged with rudimentary mathematical tools that facilitated the formulation of the concept of an ordered cosmos. Still, the process of overcoming the magical elements and powers of astrology took millennia and even the first scientists of the modern period, such as Kepler, struggled to effect the shift from mythical space to truly theoretical and scientific astronomy. This development was accompanied by an increased awareness of the role of symbolism in knowledge as space came to be articulated solely in terms of number and mathematics, as with Descartes' analytical geometry. The concept of time follows a similar path of development, beginning with the continuous nature of organic time in which life exists only in a process of evolution. The organism never inhabits a single, discrete moment, but is always emerging from its past and moving into its future. Past sensory and perceptual experience still has a determinative effect on the organism, and the coordination and usage of these imprints reaches a high level of sophistication in the higher animals that are capable of reproducing earlier incidents. But the concept of time rises, at this point, to the uniquely human form of memory in which the re-collection of past experiences involves their ordering and location within a general, symbolic schema that encompasses them all. Memory always involves a certain level of imagination also, and the assembly of more or less isolated moments into a coherent and meaningful narrative could not be achieved without the symbolic vision of the artist. Finally, the future aspect of time has a character analogous to that of the past. Organic, instinctual drives are in a sense oriented to the future, to the continuance of the species beyond the present. But the human concern with the things to come discloses a dissatisfaction with mere survival and the acceptance of an element of uncertainty that is unknown in the animal world. Although some animals do indeed exhibit sophisticated preparatory behavior which indicates a capacity to anticipate future actions or situations, the human concept of the future goes beyond pragmatic anticipation to become a symbolically expressed imperative moral undertaking.