Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos: a conversation with Simon Truwant

Dr. David Peña-Guzmán interviews Simon Truwant, Professor of Philosophy at KU Leuven. They discuss his book, Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos (Cambridge UP, 2022). What happened during and before this (in)famous public meeting between two German philosophers, Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger? How have Cassirer's neo-Kantianism and Heidegger's existential phenomenology come to represent the split between analytic and continental philosophy? Finally, how do their two philosophies give divergent answers to similar questions, and how might we think them together on topics such as the task of philosophy and the human condition?

Graphics and editing by Aaron Morgan

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[robertalenrichter]

Thanks for this discussion of an event that has interested me since I first learned of it. Bemusing, how temperament determines philosophy, rather than the other way around. There is a Calvinist strain in Heidegger's part of Germany, though he was from a conservative Catholic family. It was a patchwork region of Catholicism and a Protestantism not too far away from Switzerland. His background of time and place lends credence for me to the notion that the extremes converge. He was at once revolutionary and reactionary.

[cubething-x]

As somebody for whom the niche fits PERFECTLY, I was very excited to hear this enlightening podcast and I will definitely pick up the book :)

[riya]

Wow, as someone who's always looking for complex philosophy explained in a more beginner way, this channel always has very interesting discussions. I agree- the split has always been something "mythological" almost as if the greek's wrote it.

[jeanblique]

What fascinates me about this debate is that continental philosophers can speak about it for hours without even mentionning what was debated, and what were the arguments.

[gardnerfair]

Thank you so much for giving some airtime to Cassirer's incredibly encyclopedic philosophy that has been so neglected. I think also of Hans Blumenberg, Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas. Not that I fully agree with each of these writers (I'm a Lacanian psychoanalyst, so yeah). But it's so rare to hear contemporary thinkers having the patience to discuss anything but their specialty and little sense of the truly historical moments and settings at play (that's the Marxist in me now talking). So thank you again for doing so!

[michaelsintef]

I’m a big fan of the podcast. This presentation is a bit niche and I felt I needed more background in order to keep up and relate.