As Ernst Cassierer introduced in his “Philosophie der symbolischen Formen” in 1923, he specifically mentioned “language” as well as a way of symbolic forms. In 1991, the self declared “researcher on human sciences”, Norbert Elias, published his work called “The Symbol Theory” where he mainly writes about language as an application of symbolic forms and symbols. Elias does not make any reference to Cassirer at all, but states that languages are a part of a civilization process and part of cultur

Theis, Wolfgang

English

Elektronisch archivierte Theorie - Sammelpunkt

Wolfgang Theis 
LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SYMBOLIC FORMS 
 
0. Abstract 
 
As Ernst Cassierer introduced in his “Philosophie der symbolischen Formen” in 
1923, he specifically mentioned “language” as well as a way of symbolic forms. 
In 1991, the self declared “researcher on human sciences”, Norbert Elias, 
published his work called “The Symbol Theory” where he mainly writes about 
language as an application of symbolic forms and symbols. Elias does not make 
any reference to Cassirer at all, but states that languages are a part of a 
civilization process and part of culture1. 
 
1. Speak and Sing 
 
Human sciences and even nature sciences put the human in the focus of their 
research interests. All their ideas and views circle around the human being, 
philosophical anthropology even dares to ask “what is the human being?”. When 
trying to give an answer to this question from the biological evolutionary 
theoretical side, then it is clear: The human being is the highest developed 
mammal so far, but what is the difference of a human and an animal? For the 
German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach this is clear: it is awareness. Awareness 
is what makes the big difference between the human and the animal, because for 
him awareness is the base for recognition and science and no known animals 
have developed anything like science2. Science is the base of knowledge – and 
the other way round - and knowledge can only be transported by languages. 
Eventhough Platon criticizes writing quite heavily as an useless way to transport 
knowledge and it would make the brain lazy3, using a system of symbols, also 
known as alphabet, to transfer knowledge from generation to generation has 
proven to be handy. Chinese whispers effects by transporting information and 
knowledge are too well known to corroborate Platon’s critique. Therefore often 
the original meanings of words are covered by centuries of language 
development. 
  
Animals have developed all different kinds of signs, but their sign systems are 
very transfixed. It is known that blue whales “sing” in order of signalling to each 
other, but it is still unknown if this is really a kind of communication code, 
which can be understood by other members of the same species. If blue whales 
ever try to communicate or signal with other whales, for example sperm whales, 
is also an unknown mystery of nature. Any kind of human language is also a 
                                                 
1
 This paper is partly based on the article by Wolfgang Theis, Language and Culture as 
Symbolic Forms, in: Курганова, Н.И., Культурное разнообразие в эпоху глобализации / 
Cultural diversity in the epoch of globalization, Murmansk, 2008, p. 114 - 115 
2
 cf. Feuerbach, 1960 
3
 cf. Platon, 1993 
Wolfgang Theis 
system of codes, of symbolic phenomena. If a member of the human race can 
not decode these symbols, then he or she will never be able to understand the 
message that is transported by it, but for this human it is not impossible to learn 
a new language, in order to be able to decode this special symbol system. If a 
lion would ever be able to understand the roaring of a tiger is questionable. Both 
are members of the biological family of felidae, but up to now it has been 
impossible to prove that they are able to understand each other’s signals.  
 
2. Language, experience and development 
 
One of the biggest achievements of the human race is to have developed codes 
of communication, which are understandable to other humans. Actually there are 
numerous written and spoken languages and lots of languages have not survived 
orally. Only their relic written documents show their once existence. Such dead 
or extinct languages involve the languages of Latin, Pictish, Arua or Azari. The 
reasons for their extinction vary. Some languages simply have been forbidden 
by law of some superior (military or political) power and so their existence 
slowly vanished through oppression. Other languages simply died out, because 
the peoples who spoke these languages were either extinct by military actions or 
their cultures were assimilated by other peoples. 
 
The function of a language can be narrowed down to the term of communication 
and information transport, but this works only by the usage of an external 
system of symbols. No human is born with the ability of speaking or writing any 
kind of language right from the beginning. A language has to be learned from 
scratch and it is taught by others, who have been speaking this language before 
this birth, “a group of speakers exists before the individual act of speaking”4. So 
the ability to speak a language is not an a priori given one, it is a classical a 
posteriori. This is also stated by Immanuel Kant, who declares that “all our 
recognition starts with experience”5. So the ability to recognise something is 
related to experience and the experience of learning a language until someone is 
able to handle it properly is a process of recognition. Experience and recognition 
go hand in hand, so do language and symbol. 
 
The function of assertiveness of a single language makes it possible for it to 
achieve what it achieves. This means that because of its function of 
objectification, the assigning of meanings to persons, things, places and so on, a 
language can reproduce the meanings of attribution. A language owns the 
character of a system6 and this system has the ability to structure the reception 
and recognition of the world. Therefore this system needs a structure in itself 
                                                 
4
 Elias, 1991 
5
 Kant, 1974, B1 
6
 Göller, 1988 
Wolfgang Theis 
and this is only possible by a constant reduction of the “primary-present 
experimental reality of the single human, as well of the concrete-sensually 
cognition situation”7. Signs and sign systems are a correlating unit, no sign can 
stand alone for itself, and the same goes for language. Language and its 
symbolic character are a correlating unit as well.  
 
When we take a closer look at language as such, then we can see that everything 
in a language can have several meanings8 and this is the basic deficit a language 
has. You can try to describe a certain action in one language, but as soon as you 
are translating this to another language, then you experience the borders of 
linguistic systems. When trying to translate the English word “timing” to 
German, then you don’t find any German equivalent at all. A proper term would 
be “zu zeiten”, but this simply doesn’t exist in German9. The German standard 
dictionary Duden has not thought about adding “zu zeiten” to its pages, as it’s 
not commonly used in the German language. Only these words that are written 
in the Duden dictionaries officially exist in German. New word creations find it 
difficult to survive for a longer period and it is a long process to find its way 
inside this dictionary. In English dictionaries you will definitely find the 
expressions “to time” or “timing” and you will also find an explanation what 
these words mean. They are actually representing something. That means they 
are symbolizing a process. One single word symbolizes a whole process, it is a 
symbolic form. 
 
As languages usually consist out of words, a language is also consisting out of 
symbolic forms, it is a symbolic form in itself. It’s this symbolic form, that 
determines its common character and this character establishes homogeneity 
among its users10, at least this homogeneity is noticed from outside this closed 
system. This is what Vilem Flusser defines as an “abstraction of reality”11. The 
more reality is abstracted, the more a codified world comes into existence. This 
experience of a codified world is very individual and a lot depends on the 
individual receptions of the surrounding environment and how the single human 
can decode these codes. The five dimensions of the Flusserian understanding of 
decoding is based on history. The 5th dimension is assigned to the “natural 
human”, who lives in a four-dimensional environment of concrete experience. In 
the 4th dimension, the human’s interest for a three-dimensional space can be 
found. The 3rd dimension is based on a two-dimensional environment, which has 
its impact on culture. Traditional images place themselves between the human 
and its environment. In the 2nd dimension linear texts influence the culture of the 
human. Images and texts are in a constant battle against each other, which leads 
                                                 
7
 Göller, 1988 
8
 cf. Cassirer, 1983 
9
 cf. Elias, 1990 
10
 cf. Cassirer, 1977 
11
 Flusser, 1996 
Wolfgang Theis 
to the 1st dimension: the dimension of the technical images. These images are 
results of apparatus and computers, indirect results of scientific texts12. 
According to Flusser, the development of the human culture goes towards a 
zerodimension: the post-script era. 
 
From the outside the native speakers of a language seem to be an united mass. 
They are able to code their own decode the vocalization of the other. When 
being a member of this system, reality looks very different. Then differences in 
the vocalization become notable, dialects and regional lingual idioms get clearer 
and turn out to be factors for cultural differentiation. With the auxiliary function 
of culture, humans have created a codified cover, which acts as a mediator 
between the human and the world and shields the human from the world at the 
same time13.  
 
3. Textual cultures and symbols 
 
Culture and language are partners and antagonists at the same time. Very often 
cultures are defined by the language. Therefore it is often forgotten, that 
eventhough it might appear as the same language, there are differences in the 
cultures of its users. When we take English as an example, which is becoming a 
worldwide lingua franca, the native speakers of this language still differ in their 
cultural behaviours, habits, customs and rituals. In other words, the habitus of an 
Australian differs from an American and from a British. Still, all of them have 
English as their mothertongue. It’s a matter of socialization and cultural 
heritage, which determines some kind of national and cultural habitus. So when 
we take a closer look at what culture is supposed to be, we find that “culture” is 
a term, that is very difficult to describe, but everybody seems to know what is 
meant by it. Vilem Flusser wrote “everything is culture” (translation W.T.).  
Each culture or even subculture sees itself as “culture”, with unclear definitions. 
Each subculture has its own system of signs, symbols and codes as well. Non-
members of this cultural system find it very hard to understand them and have to 
learn these codes and symbols as some kind of language, if they want to be able 
to understand the habitus and the cultural specifications of this subculture.  
 
A symbol can be any kind of sign or action that is loaded with a special meaning 
and this meaning has to be uploaded over and over again, otherwise the symbol 
loses its original content and meaning. With that loss, the symbolic form gets 
lost and the sign is becoming empty. That way, a culture always needs to 
identify itself newly so that it doesn’t lose its meaning and self-identification. 
“Culture” is a symbolic form, it consists out of many different symbols and 
symbolic actions. They may differ from country to country, from nation to 
                                                 
12
 cf. Flusser, 1999 
13
 cf. Hartmann, 2006 
Wolfgang Theis 
nation, but all in all it’s a combination of other symbolic forms. It’s these 
symbolic forms which define culture as a culture14 (cf. Cassirer, 1977).  
 
 
Bibliography: 
 
Cassirer, E.  Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Erster Teil: Die 
Sprache, Darmstadt, 1977 
 
Cassirer, E. Wesen und Wirkung des Symbolbegriffs, Darmstadt, 1983 
 
Elias, N. Über die Zeit, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1990 
 
Elias, N. The Symbol Theory, Routledge Publishers, London, 1991 
 
Feuerbach, L. Das Wesen des Christenthums, Fromann Verlag, Stuttgart 
1960 
 
Flusser, V. Kommunikologie, Bollmann Verlag, Mannheim, 1996 
 
Flusser, V. Ins Universum der technischen Bilder, European 
Photography, Göttingen, 1999 
 
Flusser, V. Towards a Philosophy of Photography, Reaktion Books, 2000 
 
Göller, Thomas Zur Frage nach der Auszeichnung der Sprache in Cassirers 
Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, in: Braun, Hans Jürg 
(et al.), Über Ernst Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen 
Formen, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1988, p. 137 
– 155 
 
Hartmann, Frank Medienphilosophie, WUV/UTB Verlag, Wien, 2006 
 
Kant, Immanuel Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am 
Main, 1974 
 
Platon Phaidros, in: Platon, Sämtliche Dialoge, Bd. 2, Felix Meiner 
Verlag, Hamburg, 1993 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
14
 cf. Cassirer, 1977 
Wolfgang Theis 
■ FAMILY NAME: Theis 
■ FIRST NAME: Wolfgang 
■ Institution: University for Art and Industrial Design Linz 
■ Address: Hauptplatz 8, 4020 Linz, Austria 
■ E-mail: wolfgang.theis@ufg.ac.at 
■ Title of the presentation; the desired direction, the presentation relates to. 
 Language, Culture and Symbolic Forms, Philosophy, Cultural Theory 
 


Language, Culture and Symbolic Forms

Name not available

Wolfgang Theis LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SYMBOLIC FORMS  0. Abstract  As Ernst Cassierer introduced in his “Philosophie der symbolischen Formen” in 1923, he specifically mentioned “language” as well as a way of symbolic forms. In 1991, the self declared “researcher on human sciences”, Norbert Elias, published his work called “The Symbol Theory” where he mainly writes about language as an application of symbolic forms and symbols. Elias does not make any reference to Cassirer at all, but states that languages are a part of a civilization process and part of culture1.  1. Speak and Sing  Human sciences and even nature sciences put the human in the focus of their research interests. All their ideas and views circle around the human being, philosophical anthropology even dares to ask “what is the human being?”. When trying to give an answer to this question from the biological evolutionary theoretical side, then it is clear: The human being is the highest developed mammal so far, but what is the difference of a human and an animal? For the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach this is clear: it is awareness. Awareness is what makes the big difference between the human and the animal, because for him awareness is the base for recognition and science and no known animals have developed anything like science2. Science is the base of knowledge – and the other way round - and knowledge can only be transported by languages. Eventhough Platon criticizes writing quite heavily as an useless way to transport knowledge and it would make the brain lazy3, using a system of symbols, also known as alphabet, to transfer knowledge from generation to generation has proven to be handy. Chinese whispers effects by transporting information and knowledge are too well known to corroborate Platon’s critique. Therefore often the original meanings of words are covered by centuries of language development.   Animals have developed all different kinds of signs, but their sign systems are very transfixed. It is known that blue whales “sing” in order of signalling to each other, but it is still unknown if this is really a kind of communication code, which can be understood by other members of the same species. If blue whales ever try to communicate or signal with other whales, for example sperm whales, is also an unknown mystery of nature. Any kind of human language is also a                                                  1 This paper is partly based on the article by Wolfgang Theis, Language and Culture as Symbolic Forms, in: Курганова, Н.И., Культурное разнообразие в эпоху глобализации / Cultural diversity in the epoch of globalization, Murmansk, 2008, p. 114 - 115 2 cf. Feuerbach, 1960 3 cf. Platon, 1993 Wolfgang Theis system of codes, of symbolic phenomena. If a member of the human race can not decode these symbols, then he or she will never be able to understand the message that is transported by it, but for this human it is not impossible to learn a new language, in order to be able to decode this special symbol system. If a lion would ever be able to understand the roaring of a tiger is questionable. Both are members of the biological family of felidae, but up to now it has been impossible to prove that they are able to understand each other’s signals.   2. Language, experience and development  One of the biggest achievements of the human race is to have developed codes of communication, which are understandable to other humans. Actually there are numerous written and spoken languages and lots of languages have not survived orally. Only their relic written documents show their once existence. Such dead or extinct languages involve the languages of Latin, Pictish, Arua or Azari. The reasons for their extinction vary. Some languages simply have been forbidden by law of some superior (military or political) power and so their existence slowly vanished through oppression. Other languages simply died out, because the peoples who spoke these languages were either extinct by military actions or their cultures were assimilated by other peoples.  The function of a language can be narrowed down to the term of communication and information transport, but this works only by the usage of an external system of symbols. No human is born with the ability of speaking or writing any kind of language right from the beginning. A language has to be learned from scratch and it is taught by others, who have been speaking this language before this birth, “a group of speakers exists before the individual act of speaking”4. So the ability to speak a language is not an a priori given one, it is a classical a posteriori. This is also stated by Immanuel Kant, who declares that “all our recognition starts with experience”5. So the ability to recognise something is related to experience and the experience of learning a language until someone is able to handle it properly is a process of recognition. Experience and recognition go hand in hand, so do language and symbol.  The function of assertiveness of a single language makes it possible for it to achieve what it achieves. This means that because of its function of objectification, the assigning of meanings to persons, things, places and so on, a language can reproduce the meanings of attribution. A language owns the character of a system6 and this system has the ability to structure the reception and recognition of the world. Therefore this system needs a structure in itself                                                  4 Elias, 1991 5 Kant, 1974, B1 6 Göller, 1988 Wolfgang Theis and this is only possible by a constant reduction of the “primary-present experimental reality of the single human, as well of the concrete-sensually cognition situation”7. Signs and sign systems are a correlating unit, no sign can stand alone for itself, and the same goes for language. Language and its symbolic character are a correlating unit as well.   When we take a closer look at language as such, then we can see that everything in a language can have several meanings8 and this is the basic deficit a language has. You can try to describe a certain action in one language, but as soon as you are translating this to another language, then you experience the borders of linguistic systems. When trying to translate the English word “timing” to German, then you don’t find any German equivalent at all. A proper term would be “zu zeiten”, but this simply doesn’t exist in German9. The German standard dictionary Duden has not thought about adding “zu zeiten” to its pages, as it’s not commonly used in the German language. Only these words that are written in the Duden dictionaries officially exist in German. New word creations find it difficult to survive for a longer period and it is a long process to find its way inside this dictionary. In English dictionaries you will definitely find the expressions “to time” or “timing” and you will also find an explanation what these words mean. They are actually representing something. That means they are symbolizing a process. One single word symbolizes a whole process, it is a symbolic form.  As languages usually consist out of words, a language is also consisting out of symbolic forms, it is a symbolic form in itself. It’s this symbolic form, that determines its common character and this character establishes homogeneity among its users10, at least this homogeneity is noticed from outside this closed system. This is what Vilem Flusser defines as an “abstraction of reality”11. The more reality is abstracted, the more a codified world comes into existence. This experience of a codified world is very individual and a lot depends on the individual receptions of the surrounding environment and how the single human can decode these codes. The five dimensions of the Flusserian understanding of decoding is based on history. The 5th dimension is assigned to the “natural human”, who lives in a four-dimensional environment of concrete experience. In the 4th dimension, the human’s interest for a three-dimensional space can be found. The 3rd dimension is based on a two-dimensional environment, which has its impact on culture. Traditional images place themselves between the human and its environment. In the 2nd dimension linear texts influence the culture of the human. Images and texts are in a constant battle against each other, which leads                                                  7 Göller, 1988 8 cf. Cassirer, 1983 9 cf. Elias, 1990 10 cf. Cassirer, 1977 11 Flusser, 1996 Wolfgang Theis to the 1st dimension: the dimension of the technical images. These images are results of apparatus and computers, indirect results of scientific texts12. According to Flusser, the development of the human culture goes towards a zerodimension: the post-script era.  From the outside the native speakers of a language seem to be an united mass. They are able to code their own decode the vocalization of the other. When being a member of this system, reality looks very different. Then differences in the vocalization become notable, dialects and regional lingual idioms get clearer and turn out to be factors for cultural differentiation. With the auxiliary function of culture, humans have created a codified cover, which acts as a mediator between the human and the world and shields the human from the world at the same time13.   3. Textual cultures and symbols  Culture and language are partners and antagonists at the same time. Very often cultures are defined by the language. Therefore it is often forgotten, that eventhough it might appear as the same language, there are differences in the cultures of its users. When we take English as an example, which is becoming a worldwide lingua franca, the native speakers of this language still differ in their cultural behaviours, habits, customs and rituals. In other words, the habitus of an Australian differs from an American and from a British. Still, all of them have English as their mothertongue. It’s a matter of socialization and cultural heritage, which determines some kind of national and cultural habitus. So when we take a closer look at what culture is supposed to be, we find that “culture” is a term, that is very difficult to describe, but everybody seems to know what is meant by it. Vilem Flusser wrote “everything is culture” (translation W.T.).  Each culture or even subculture sees itself as “culture”, with unclear definitions. Each subculture has its own system of signs, symbols and codes as well. Non-members of this cultural system find it very hard to understand them and have to learn these codes and symbols as some kind of language, if they want to be able to understand the habitus and the cultural specifications of this subculture.   A symbol can be any kind of sign or action that is loaded with a special meaning and this meaning has to be uploaded over and over again, otherwise the symbol loses its original content and meaning. With that loss, the symbolic form gets lost and the sign is becoming empty. That way, a culture always needs to identify itself newly so that it doesn’t lose its meaning and self-identification. “Culture” is a symbolic form, it consists out of many different symbols and symbolic actions. They may differ from country to country, from nation to                                                  12 cf. Flusser, 1999 13 cf. Hartmann, 2006 Wolfgang Theis nation, but all in all it’s a combination of other symbolic forms. It’s these symbolic forms which define culture as a culture14 (cf. Cassirer, 1977).    Bibliography:  Cassirer, E.  Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Erster Teil: Die Sprache, Darmstadt, 1977  Cassirer, E. Wesen und Wirkung des Symbolbegriffs, Darmstadt, 1983  Elias, N. Über die Zeit, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1990  Elias, N. The Symbol Theory, Routledge Publishers, London, 1991  Feuerbach, L. Das Wesen des Christenthums, Fromann Verlag, Stuttgart 1960  Flusser, V. Kommunikologie, Bollmann Verlag, Mannheim, 1996  Flusser, V. Ins Universum der technischen Bilder, European Photography, Göttingen, 1999  Flusser, V. Towards a Philosophy of Photography, Reaktion Books, 2000  Göller, Thomas Zur Frage nach der Auszeichnung der Sprache in Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, in: Braun, Hans Jürg (et al.), Über Ernst Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1988, p. 137 – 155  Hartmann, Frank Medienphilosophie, WUV/UTB Verlag, Wien, 2006  Kant, Immanuel Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1974  Platon Phaidros, in: Platon, Sämtliche Dialoge, Bd. 2, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, 1993                                                       14 cf. Cassirer, 1977 Wolfgang Theis ■ FAMILY NAME: Theis ■ FIRST NAME: Wolfgang ■ Institution: University for Art and Industrial Design Linz ■ Address: Hauptplatz 8, 4020 Linz, Austria ■ E-mail: wolfgang.theis@ufg.ac.at ■ Title of the presentation; the desired direction, the presentation relates to.  Language, Culture and Symbolic Forms, Philosophy, Cultural Theory  

Language, Culture and Symbolic Forms

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