Symbolic forms and public reason: Cassirer and the problem of the antinomy of culture as a theoretical-pragmatic problem

One of the problems faced by Cassirer's project in Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is the problem of the antinomy of culture, that is, that each dimension or sphere of culture tends to present itself and represent itself not only as part of human production in view of meaning but has pretensions of universality. As is evident in Cassirer’s thought, the problem of antinomy is at the heart of the concept of culture since it must be not only an empirical and historical description of human spiritual products, but it is intended to be equally normative, insofar as a philosophically adequate conception of culture must provide a certain set of rules by which all cultural spheres must be able to articulate themselves in order to preserve the existence and certain validity of culture. each of them, without them mutually excluding or nullifying their particular validities. However, beyond the essentially theoretical dimension of the problem, the effects of the antinomy of culture are perceptible at the pragmatic level of real human interaction that occurs precisely through the plural articulation of these spheres. In other words, human agents decide based on the privilege granted to this or that sphere or cultural dimension in relation to the others. In the practical world of human actions, this means that resolving certain social or political problems involves the philosophical problem of how to exercise a meta-evaluation of the different postulations of importance or relevance of certain cultural spheres in the face of particular contexts or problems. Thus, the problem of the antinomy of culture is also included in the scope of the problems of public rationality. This article aims, therefore, to explain the problem of the antinomy of culture as a theoretical-pragmatic problem that is at the origin of both practical problems - social, ethical and political - and the metaphilosophical problem about the role and contribution of philosophy.