Abstract

The essay examines a few aspects of Cassirer’s theory of object, with specific reference to the differences between the Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff thesis and the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen thesis. If in his 1910 work Cassirer is mostly interested in defining a theory of the physical object, starting with the Faktum of natural science, with the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen the theory of object is integrated by an in-depth analysis of the forms of representation of the «thing» from the pre-scientific experience. One of the most relevant consequences of such extension of the theory of object is the ample space found, in Cassirer’s masterpiece, by a phenomenology of perception, which has the task of clarifying the function of perception processes in constituting the objects of our ordinary experience of the world.