The Thing in Itself and the Freedom of Thought: On Cassirer’s Interpretation of Critical Philosophy

Abstract

This paper analyses Cassirer’s characterization of critical philosophy as the philosophy of freedom. This amounts to a claim not only regarding morality but concerning the theory of knowledge in the first place. Even though Cassirer insists on the close relation that holds between his philosophy and Kantian idealism, Cassirer’s viewpoint is not so easily compatible with Kant’s doctrine. In this paper, I will show that Cassirer’s stance is in fact based on a deep criticism of the Kantian distinction between sensibility, understanding and reason, which is revealed by Cassirer’s account of the Kantian concept of the thing in itself.