Samantha Matherne, "Cassirer" (Routledge, 2021)
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What is the introductory overview of the podcast and the new book on Ernst Cassirer?
Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor, and I love maps. So I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the best education podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author, Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share. A map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast at occulehyphenmundi.com while you listen.
Jerry's guests include Zakya Suewell, who's an English broadcaster, and writer on Finding Albion, Josh Schmidt, who's the Head of maps at the Zurich Central Library, Pat Seed, a US historian on Ptolemy's World Map, John Romero, who's a legendary video game producer on the Doom Game Creator, Elif Sharak, a well known Turkish British novelist, and Chet Van Duzer, a historian who will tell you about Martin Valdsey Mueller's Carter Marina of sixteen forty five. I highly encourage you to subscribe to What's Your Map. It's available on Apple, Spotify, and all major Podcast platforms. Welcome to the New Books Network.
Hello and welcome to New Books in Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa, and co host of the channel along with Robert Talise, Sarah Tyson, and Malcolm Keating. Together we bring up conversations with philosophers about their new books in a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Samantha Mothorn. Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Her new brook, Kassirer, is just out from Routledge. Ernst Kassierer was a leading Neocantian who developed a systematic view of how we construct and experience culture. widely construed to include mathematics, science, religion, myth, art, politics, ethics, and other social endeavors.
In Kassira, Mathart explains how he updates Kant to develop his critical idealism in the form of a distinction between substance and function, the mind-dependent objects we cognize, and the structure of our minds that these objects depend on. He uses this view in his broad philosophy of symbolic forms, unpacking the way we build up the cultural world around us. and our lived experience in that cultural world. Mother brings Cassier's work to life for those beyond his contemporary influences in the metaphysics of science, the philosophy of art, and the insertion of myth into the politics of fascism. Let's turn to the interview. Hello, Samantha Mothern. Welcome to New Books in Philosophy.
Hello Carrie, it's such a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, um this is, you know, one of the more uh exciting books I'm I'm able to um interview the author um with because I came across uh Kesir's substance and function. when I was in graduate school and I was like, you know, how come nobody knows this guy? Um and as you mentioned in the book, he was he was the subject of uh sh uh was it Schlipp Schlipp's uh series of living the library of living philosophers, although he he died, you know, in the middle of that. Um But I was also f I was just fascinated by the whole uh the I guess the structuralism and I was thinking about it in terms of philosophy of language. But I didn't you know, I I couldn't really get anywhere with it and so it just kind of fell into the background.
Um but I'm really glad to be have this opportunity to must get a look at his overall. body of work and to really understand it and and reading your book maybe realize You know, I got a little bit out of f substance and function, but um clearly there was a lot that I did not did not get as a as a grad student, kind of just working on my own on that. Um so before we get to the book, um maybe you can tell us a bit about yourself um and how you you know discovered or ended up in philosophy and then um how you came to write this book.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the introductory overview of the podcast and the new book on Ernst Cassirer?
0:00–10:51
2
How does Samantha Matherne describe her personal journey into philosophy and Kantian studies?
10:51–20:33
3
What are the key biographical milestones in Ernst Cassirer’s life and career?
20:33–31:38
4
How does Cassirer’s distinction between substance and function update Kant’s critical idealism?
31:38–46:30
5
In what way does Cassirer apply the substance‑function framework to the philosophy of mathematics and science?
46:30–59:34
6
What is Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms and how does it explain culture, art, and myth?
59:34–1:05:35
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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