Language and Myth

How can such a small, easy to read, & to the point book reveal so much? Ernst Cassirer is a philosophical genius who writes to the common man without all the typical wasted German idealist wording. Help yourself to question the beginning, the history, & the continuing changes of how language & myth intertwine, & limit our human experience. Great starting book for the Philosophical beginner, & if you like this book, try Ernst Cassirer's other well written, but larger book: "Essay on Man".

My first book as a fledgling philosophy student was Cassirer'swork on the Enlightenment and I was in up over my head, but I stuck it out and learned a lot. So, when his book on myth and language came to my attention, I was familiar with the author and his reputation. I have not read the professional critiques on this work, but my personal opinion is that it is unique in every respect. I have not seen anything else that parallels the growth of myth (religion) and language as this does, nor have I seen anything that deals as effectively with the idea of epistemology that is quite apart from that of science and inductive probabilities. If you want to read what a brilliant man believes and substantiates about knowledge from a really different viewpoint, this may be the book for you. It is deep, but each page will grab you -- perhaps more than once.

This little book is a revelation in 99 pages. It is highly theoretical and while it is not an easy read it is not beyond the comprehension of a layperson either. Cassirer's arguments lead me to think about language and consciousness itself in ways which I never have before, but which seem so amazingly right that I experienced many moments of epiphany. This book is an excellent rebuttal to the argument that reason is the origin and culmination of human thought and that all myth is rooted in ignorance (take that, Carl Sagan). If you are interested in theories of mythology and/or theories of language/linguistics, this book is a must.

I loved this book. If you are interested in linguistics and philosophy, this is the book. After reading this you may have a whole new perspective on the origins of language, that is if you are a student of linguistics. I highly recommend this to those interested in ancient texts and languages, myths, logic and the development of human intellect.

How do we view the world and invent new processes and words to explain new objects, peoples and ideas? How did the ancients derive new meanings from existing words and combine them to explain new phenomena? Were those halos around the heads of saintly beings auras, space helmets, or were these beings holograms? Moses' halo was interpreted as horns in Northern European sculpture. A worthwhile read in a world today that requires new words every day to explain and name our technological advances. How we form these words and how are they transmitted and translated from culture to culture is explored in this excellent book. Read the Bible with new meaning. Be better able to interpret figurative meanings from literal meanings. Reinterpret what you thought to be dogmatic truth vs. myth and tradition and mere metaphor. Cassirer explores the evolution of language, and the invention of new words. This book is a timeless treasure.