Ernst Cassirer on Form and Technology—Contemporary Readings

Cassirer's thought-provoking essay Form and Technology (1930) considers the theoretical work performed by material instruments and, in so doing, it ascribes to technology a new dignity as a genuine tool of the mind in equal company with language and art. Germinating in this essay, we find an ambitious program for a new kind of philosophy of technology that resonates with contemporary approaches focusing on material apparatuses, relational and performative processes, and the embodied, embedded, and enacted nature of perception and cognition. Cassirer's approach, however, is unique in the way that it integrates logical concerns, championed by scientifically oriented philosophers, with the concerns of the historical and cultural sciences. The current revival of interest in Cassirer's thinking has precisely to do with its potential for bridging unproductive intellectual gaps. Form and Technology, especially, provides a rich resource for current attempts, across disciplines, to develop new conceptual and ontological frameworks. Cassirer's classic essay, translated here into English for the first time, is accompanied by ten critical essays that explore its current relevance.

AUD SISSEL HOEL is Associate Professor of Visual Communication at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She is the author of Maktens bilder (Disciplinary Images) (2007) and Fremstilling og teknikk (Exposition and Technology) (2005), and co-editor of Ernst Cassirer: Form og teknikk: Utvalgte tekster (Form and Technology: Selected Essays) (2006). She is the author of numerous essays about pictures, scientific imaging, and the philosophy of vision.

INGVILD FOLKVORD is Associate Professor of German literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She is the author of Sich ein Haus schreiben: Drei Texte aus Ingeborg Bachmanns Prosa (2003), has authored and co-edited several publications on modern literature, media culture, and literacy, and translated Ingeborg Bachmann ('Undine geht') and Ernst Cassirer (selected essays).