Full Name: Cassirer, Ernst
Gender: male
Date Born: 1874
Date Died: 1945
Place Born: Wrocław, Poland
Place Died: New York, NY, USA
Home Country/ies: Germany
Subject Area(s): art history, historiography, and philosophy
Career(s): philosophers
Overview
Philosopher whose work was influential for art history and historiography. Cassirer was born in Breslau, Silesia, Prussia which is present-day Wroclaw, Poland. He attended the Gymnasium in Breslau before admission to the University of Berlin where he studied jurisprudence and philosophy. Like many students of the era, he also attended university lectures at the universities of Leipzig, Munich, and Heidelberg. He settled at the University of Marburg in 1886. His Ph.D. in philosophy (summa cum laude) appeared in 1899. He became a privatdozent at the University of Berlin in the years before World War I. He married Toni Bondy in 1902. Cassirer served (was drafted) for the German civil service during World War I. After Germany’s defeat, he was appointed professor at the University of Hamburg in 1919. He was named rector in 1930. The advent of the Nazi regime in 1933 forced Cassirer to resign. He immigrated to England were he taught as a lecturer at All Souls College, Oxford University until 1935 He received a professorship at the University of Goeteborg, Sweden, in philosophy, in 1935. He became naturalized Swedish citizen in the 1930s. Cassirer remained there until 1941 when he became a visiting professor at Yale University in 1941. He moved to Columbia University under the same status as visiting professor of philosophy, 1944-45.
Selected Bibliography
The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer. Paul A. Schilp, ed. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1949.
Sources
KMP, 61-62 mentioned. Silvia Ferretti. Cassierer, Panofsky, and Warburg: Symbol, Art and History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
Archives
- Ernst Cassirer papers, Yale University. http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.cassirer, GEN MSS 98.
Contributors: Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen