Antoine Mooij’s Phenomenology of Symbolization: Synthesizing Lacan and Cassirer

Lacan and Cassirer: An Essay on Symbolisation “aims to present an image of man as a symbolising being that is able to interpret itself and is thus endowed with the capacity of self-determination” (LC, 1). As one would expect, given the title, Mooij presents an understanding of man as animal symbolicum by making use of the work of Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) and Jacques Lacan (1901–1981). While noting that “Cassirer and Lacan at first glance seem to have very little in common,” (LC, 1) Mooij points out a number of relevant connections between these two thinkers. Lacan was directly influenced by thinkers in the German Idealist tradition, especially Kant and Hegel (LC, 98), and he was also familiar with Cassirer’s own work (LC, 97). Additionally, Lacan was influenced indirectly by the German Idealist tradition through the work of Freud and Sartre: both of whom were important for Lacan (especially Freud), and were themselves at least loosely descendants of the Kantian tradition. More important than any question of intellectual heritage, however, is the point that both Cassirer and Lacan make the problem of symbolization central to their work (LC, 2).