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The power of rituals: Mendelssohn and Cassirer on the religious dimension of Bildung

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2014

ANNE POLLOK
ANNE POLLOK*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA e-mail: apollok@sc.edu
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Abstract

This article discusses the ceremonial laws in Judaism as a language of religion and assesses their role within human self-formation (Bildung). Moses Mendelssohn's groundbreaking account on the function of ritual offers both a solution and a threat to this issue: on the one hand the capacity to perform and understand rituals can be seen as a form of self-liberation. At the same time, the general openness to interpretation makes this conception vulnerable to the destructive force of idolatry. With the aid of Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, this article offers a solution to this problem by showing how ritual functions as a dialogue between the members of a community; a dialogue that carries a distinctively ethical outreach.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 445 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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