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Cassirer, Ernst

    Image Credit: Wikipedia

    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


    Contributors: Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen


    Citation

    Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen. "Cassirer, Ernst." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/cassirere/.


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