Foreword: A Reading of the Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, John Michael Krois Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations and References Introduction: The Strategy of Reading . . . 1 The "Crisis" in the Project of Rationality 2 The Structure of the Symbolic Function as the Function of Structure 3 Language: The "Genesis" of Signification and the Aufbau of the Objective World 4 Myth as the Other of Logos or the Texture of the Real: The Presence of Meaning as the Meaning of Presence 5 Religion: The "Logic of Absurdity" and the Intuition of the Real 6 Science: The Writing of a Lingua Universalis 7 Art: The "Eye of Spirit" and the "Cloak of Reality" Conclusion: Cassirer's Metaphysics of the Symbolic Forms Notes Bibliography Index

"This is the first work on Cassirer that I know of that relates his position to the most current views in French and German thought. It is really a new treatment of Cassirer." — Donald Phillip Verene, coeditor of Ernst Cassirer's The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 4: The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms"…an insightful study. The references to Cassirer's corpus and the specific quotes used as evidence are exceptionally well chosen. Moreover, the analysis of the structure of Cassirer's project both in terms of the manner in which it is normally interpreted and in terms of Lofts' explication is especially interesting. For a reader familiar with both Cassirer's original works and the body of literature it has engendered, this text offers some insights worthy of further examination." — Dorothy A. Morosoff, Fordham University