The Myth of the State by Ernst Cassirer (PDF)

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It is, indeed, a testament of wisdom.—New York Times“A brilliant survey of some of the major texts in the history of political theory.”—Kenneth Burke, The Nation”Cassirer was a brilliant historical philosopher and his analyses of vogues in political alchemy . . . are savagely forthright.”—New Yorker

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐While Ernst Cassirer provides an illuminating analysis of the nature of myth in The Myth of the State, he never tells his reader what the western myth of the state is. Extrapolating from his analysis of Plato, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Carlyle, the racist Gobineau, Hegel, et al, what emerges is the unfolding of a theory of the state, not a mythos of it. The passionate and emotive elements of myth, which Cassirer brilliantly explicates about myth in general, are never made explicit in his analysis of the theory (“myth”) of the state (except at the end when he discusses Nazism). If anything, these elements are subsumed in the content of his analysis.Nevertheless, Cassirer masterfully explains much of the development of the western theory of the state through time. He hits on many of the salient thinkers and philosophical movements. Yet, inexplicably, some important thinkers seem to get short shrift comparatively speaking (e.g. Aristotle) and others scarcely manage more than a brief mention (e.g. Marx). Readers might find (what turned out to be) Cassirer’s parting shot at Heidegger and the proto-fascist elements of his philosophy fascinating (Cassirer died in 1945 and The Myth of the State was published posthumously). Perhaps most intriguing is how Cassirer reserves most of his ire for Hegel, arguably making his philosophy most responsible for the intellectual underpinnings of the rise of National Socialism in Germany–an analysis not entirely unpredictable for a neo-Kantian like Cassirer to make given how, in the historical estimation of many, Hegel eclipsed Kant as Germany’s preeminent philosopher.Notwithstanding these limitations, The Myth of the State is worth reading. Cassirer’s analysis of the development of the western theory of the state is evidently too sagacious to be missed.

⭐Interesting “last” book by the great Ernst Cassirer of Germany, published posthumously. The Cassirer family was among the most prominent Jewish families in Germany before the war, and Ernst Cassirer remains the most prominent of this illustrious family, which includes members currently maintaining a lawsuit against the Kingdom of Spain and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid for the return of an Impressionist masterpiece by Camille Pissarro stolen by the Nazis in 1939, just before Hitler invaded Poland and the war began in Europe.Professor Cassirer left the University of Hamburg in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis and Adolph Hitler to power in Germany. During the war, he taught at both Yale and Columbia. Ernst Cassirer passed away in 1945.In this book, among other things, Cassirer explores the nexus of myth and politics, with implications today in America.Enjoy this last book by one of the great thinkers of the 20th century.

⭐This purchase was a real and valuable find, obtained at an eminently reasonable price, and in good condition, as described! Thanks to you, I discovered the book in my library, but had forgotten to add it to my computerized bibliographic file, an oversight which I have just corrected. I own several of Cassirer’s works that have been translated into English! Let me know if you have translations of his other works.

⭐Cassirer observations are precise and stimulating.

⭐The Amazon blurb for this book says that Cassirer “reveals how the myth of the state evolved from primitive times to prepare the way for the rise of the modern totalitarian state.” Actually, he doesn’t do this. I thought the book would be a philosophical/anthropological analysis of the role played by mythology in the State throughout history, maybe even examine whether the concept of State is itself a mythological one, something that has managed to elicit quasi-religious devotion from patriots past and present. But that’s not Cassirer’s frame of reference; he conceives of myth as a “primitive” phenomenon that must be struggled against by rationality. It becomes clear toward the end of the book that he feels the employment of mythic concepts was a significant factor in the rise of the Nazi regime; so myth in the State becomes something to battle against.He does provide a nice discussion of myth in the first part of the book, something of a summary of his writing in vol. 2 of his “Philosophy of Symbolic Forms”. But after that his focus is on rational political philosophies throughout history and for a good part of the book the notion of myth seems to just fade away. He discusses Plato, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, and the Enlightenment writers. (He does mention that Machiavelli’s notion of “Fortune” seems mythical, but this isn’t central to his analysis of the significance of Machiavelli’s political writing.)Cassirer sees rationality in political thought as beginning to diminish with Carlyle’s writings about hero worship, Gobineau’s writings about racial superiority, and Hegel’s proposition that History is its own and only judge and any exercise of raw power is justified thereby (so Hegel was Nietzsche before Nietzsche). Finally Cassirer identifies myth as being active in the modern state by pointing to the Nazi regime, one in which myth had the uniquely 20th century characteristic of being manufactured, rather than developing organically, to suit the needs of those in power.As I understand it this book was written in the ’40s, so I can appreciate Cassirer’s focus, but I would have liked a book that acknowledged the existence of myths in other regimes that were not so terrible. For Cassirer, myth in the State leads to evil, but I think there is a lot of mythical thinking going on in regimes around the world that provides the groundwork for the modern State without being as nefarious as the philosophies of the Nazis.But what Cassirer has written is well written and analyzed, even if it ultimately didn’t have the focus I wanted. He’s good at summarizing political philosophies through the ages (even making Hegel somewhat coherent). He does tend to get a bit repetitive when discussing Machiavelli and he never does provde a satisfactory answer as to why the Enlightenment philosophers revived the Stoic notion of individual liberty.

⭐I just got the book, so am not reviewing the contents, but just wanted to say that I am shocked and disgusted by such a production from Yale, which I had always associated with high quality. The book has been printed from the 1946 edition of this serious work of philosophy, and not well printed either. These days one expects books, no matter how serious, to be readable. The text is quite small by today’s standards and crammed together, and what is really inexcusable is that the printing is not sharp and clear. I guess everybody’s entitled to an off day, but it would have taken a lot more than one day to come up with this. Yale, wake up!

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