Cover image for Symbolic Forms for a New Humanity : Cultural and Racial Reconfigurations of Critical Theory.
Symbolic Forms for a New Humanity : Cultural and Racial Reconfigurations of Critical Theory.
Title:
Symbolic Forms for a New Humanity : Cultural and Racial Reconfigurations of Critical Theory.
Author:
Cornell, Drucilla.
ISBN:
9780823232529
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (219 pages)
Series:
Just Ideas
Contents:
Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- The World of Symbolic Forms: Ernst Cassirer and the Legacy of Immanuel Kant -- The Word Magic of Being: On the Mythical Origins of Thinking -- The Always Unfinished Project of Modernity: The Fragile Life of Symbols -- Transformative Revolution: Repairing the Fractured Ethical World -- Unfree Black Labor: The Telos of History and the Struggle against Racialized Capitalism -- Conclusion: TheWork of Transformative Constitutionalism -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.
Abstract:
In dialogue with afro-caribbean philosophy, this book seeks in CassirerGs philosophy of symbolic forms a new vocabulary for approaching central intellectual and political issues of our time. For Cassirer, what makes humans unique is that we are symbolizing creatures destined to come into a world through varied symbolic forms; we pluralistically work with and develop these forms as we struggle to come to terms with who we are and our place in the universe. This approach can be used as a powerful challenge to hegemonic modes of study that mistakenly place the Western world at the center of intellectual and political life. Indeed, the authors argue that the symbolic dimension of CassirerGs thinking of possibility can be linked to a symbolic dimension in revolution via the ideas of Frantz Fanon, who argued that revolution must be a thoroughgoing cultural process, in which what is at stake is nothing less than how we symbolize a new humanity and bring into being a new set of social institutions worthy of that new humanity.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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