Cassirer on Neuroscience

Author(s): Hans Zillmann

The aim of the present study is to determine the possibilities and limitations of the neuroscientific subject description. This provision should be formulated from an epistemological, cultural and scientific perspective. For this purpose, the thesis of the double contextuality of the neuroscientific subject description is developed. Both the research object of some neuroscientists, the subject, and the research itself are embedded in specific cultural-historical contexts. Both are shaped and determined by these contexts. At the center of these representations is Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms, because at this point it should also be examined to what extent his philosophy can be made fruitful for the question of the possibilities and limitations of brain research. This article is the summary of a larger and more detailed investigation [1].