Numbering and the relations of number are also understood in mythical Dasein from out of the character of the all of everything which is, from out of the power. Each number has its “individual physiognomy,” its own magical power. What is equally numbered presents itself as one and the same essence — without regard to whether there is nevertheless a fundamental difference — according to the principle of concrescence: “all magic is for the most part number magic” (p. 178) [Symbolic Forms, p. 144]. Numbered determinateness does not mean ordering in a sequence, but rather belonging to a determinate domain of the uncommon. The number is the mediator that connects the whole of mythical actuality to the unity of a power-full world order. As manifold as the forms of the mythical doctrine of numbers may be, and as different as the ways of mythically emphasizing the distinctiveness of individual numbers (for example, three or seven) may be, certain original prefigurations for the making sacred of individual numbers can nevertheless be indicated on the basis of the particular kind of mythical spatiality and temporality: the number four becomes sacred, for example, because of the regions of the sky. Furthermore, the sacredness of the number seven goes back to the power of time, which is made evident in the phases of the moon, through a division by four of the twenty-eight-day month that presents itself on its own to intuition, as it were. In the distinctive emphasis placed mythically upon the number three, one sees, on the other hand, the originally personal relation between father, mother, and child coming through, just as the dual and trinal forms in language refer back to the relation between I, you, and he. Binding these originally powerful relations to numbers is something that remains itself utterly bound to having the character of the mythically efficacious.

From the analysis of the mythical Object-world and its way of being discovered and determined, the inquiry then turns toward “subjective actuality” and its unveiling in myth. Cassirer begins this discussion with a fundamental and biting critique of “animism,” which still dominates in the most diverse ways the investigations of ethnological research. The world of mythical Dasein cannot simply be interpreted on the basis of the prevailing conceptions of the soul; for then the “subject” as such still remains veiled. To the extent that mythical Dasein is familiar with itself at all, it does not interpret itself solely in relation to a world that is grasped purely in terms of things. Object [Objekt] and subject and the relation between them is understood by mythical Dasein within the horizon of what makes itself evident as the the general character of the actual, that is, it is understood in terms of mana. What has to be shown here is precisely how mythical Dasein, which in its “indeterminate life-feeling” remains bound to all beings, enacts a “confrontation” between world and I that is proper to it, rooted in its own specific way of being, i.e., in its “doing.” The sphere of the actual that is primarily discovered and delimited in doing, in a peculiar reflecting back upon doing itself, makes doing visible in its different “capabilities.” Within the horizon of magical power one’s own doing is a magical act. “The first force [Kraft] by means of which the human places himself as something proper and independent over and against things is the force of wish [Wunsch]” (p. 194) [Symbolic Forms, p. 157]. “The abundance of divine forms that the human creates for himself not only serves to guide it through the sphere of objective being and events but rather above all through the sphere of its own will and accomplishment and illuminates this sphere from within” (p. 251) [Symbolic Forms, p. 203]. The further process of the unveiling of “subjectivity” and its ways of comportment is carried out in the transition from nature-myths to culture-myths, until finally, in the more or less magic-free manipulation of tools, the Being-connected between things becomes manifest on its own terms as independent. The human thereby frees itself from being magically bound to things and in a retreat from the world lets that world be encountered “Objectively.”

Just as the subject does not discover itself in the emergence and return of things that stand purely over and against it, neither is it the case that a divided I-You relationship, or any such form of community, is primarily constitutive for the unveiling of subjectivity. Totemism, which is improperly posited as the grounding phenomenon of mythical Dasein, cannot be explained sociologically. Instead, all social divisions and the individuals that are given along with them, require, like totemism itself, a “grounding” developed from out of the original way of Being of mythical Dasein and the mana-representation that dominates it. The proper problem of totemism lies in the fact that not only the human as such stands in a certain inextricable relation to the animal or the plant, but that each particular group has its own particular totemic animal. Farmers, herdsmen, and hunters each discover themselves in reference to plants and animals in a way that is peculiar to each and that makes itself evident immediately as a magical affiliation. At the same time, however, this reference makes it possible, in a reflecting back, for the pertinent human life spheres to become explicit as such. Totemism is not caused by particular kinds of plants and animals but rather emerges from out of the elementary Dasein-relations of the human to its world.

Only when things are grounded in the mana-representation does it then also become possible to conceive how individual self-consciousness takes shape and how the “concept” of the soul comes to be articulated. What is later conceptually distinguished as body and soul, or life and death, is indeed also always already actual for mythical Dasein but in the mode of magical power, according to which what is dead also is, and a force of the soul makes itself known even when the human met with is not encountered bodily. Only in the unity of magical efficacy can the individual forces of the soul or the individual “souls” appear as split apart and dwell along side one another. Correspondingly the “development” of individual Dasein is also distributed among different subjects, between which determinate transitions take place. In its being threatened by magical powers, mythical Dasein’s “own” soul stands as an “alien” power over and against it. Even where the representation of protective spirits is awakened, one’s own self is still a power, as it were, which protectively takes up the individual I. Only first at higher levels does the magical daemon become daimonion and genius, in such a way that Dasein in the end comes to determine itself not as an alien power but rather from out of that for which it is freely capable, from itself and for itself as an ethical subject.

If the power and uncommonness of the divine primarily and thoroughly dominates mythical Dasein, then the basic comportment to actuality can never be a mere intuition but is rather in like manner an actualizing that takes on the form of cult and rite. All mythical narration is always only a derivative report of sacred dealings. In these sacred dealings, in contrast, mythical Dasein presents itself immediately. The earlier the cult takes shape, the more sacrifice assumes a central position. Sacrifice is indeed a renunciation, but at the same time it is still a dealing that is enacted by oneself which prepares the way for a certain release from the exclusive power of magical forces. Therein, however, the free power of Dasein is exposed and at the same time the cleft between the human and the divine widens, so as to demand at a higher level a renewed overcoming.

In this way, myth becomes visible as a unified autonomous formative power. Mythic shapes display an inner dialectic in which earlier forms are expanded and transformed but not simply rejected. The mythical “process” carries itself out in Dasein itself without reflection. When this process has run through its possibilities, it itself comes up against its own overcoming. Cassirer seeks to show this dialectic in the different positions that myth assumes toward its own world-image (p. 290) [Symbolic Forms, p. 235].

This brief account has to forego even a slight treatment of the rich ethnological and religious historical material that grounds Cassirer’s interpretation of myth and that he works into the individual analyses with his unique talent for perspicacious and apt presentation. In making available to the author its extensive and rare collections, as well as and especially the use of its entire facilities, the Warburg library in Hamburg provided exceptional assistance in the work (Foreword, p. xiii) [Symbolic Forms, p. xviii]. Among the analyses of mythical phenomena, especially noteworthy are those dealing with the function of the tool in the unveiling of Object-world, and those dealing with sacrifice (p. 273ff.) [Symbolic Forms, p. 221ff.].

Our approach to the philosophy of myth outlined here must pursue three points. First, it must be asked: What does this interpretation achieve for the grounding and guiding of the positive sciences of mythical Dasein (ethnology and the history of religion)? Then it becomes necessary to examine the foundations and methodological principles that support the philosophical analysis of the essence of myth. And finally, the basic question arises concerning the constitutive function of myth in human Dasein and in the all of beings as such.

With regard to the first question, Cassirer’s work proves itself to be a fruitful success. It brings the problematic of the positive research into myth to a fundamentally higher level by carrying out in a variety of ways the demonstration that myth can never be “explained” by having recourse to determinate spheres of Objects within the mythical world. The critique that is directed in this way against the naturalistic, totemistic, animistic, and sociological attempts at explanation is thoroughly unambiguous and devastating. This critique, for its part, is grounded in the anticipatory determination of myth as one functional form [Funktionsform] of spirit, having its own laws. If this conception of myth can prevail in empirical research, then secure guidance has been gained both for the initial appropriation and interpretation of newly discovered material as well as for the elaboration and exploration of already established results.

Yet if this interpretation of myth is to be judged not only with regard to what it achieves as a guide in the positive sciences but also with regard to its own philosophical content, then the following questions arise: is the predetermination of myth as a functional form of creative consciousness adequately grounded on its own terms? Where are the foundations for such an admittedly unavoidable grounding to be found? Are the foundations themselves sufficiently secured and elaborated? Cassirer’s grounding of his guiding predetermination of myth as a creative force [bildender Kraft] of spirit (“symbolic form”) is essentially an appeal to Kant’s “Copernican revolution,” according to which all “actuality” is to be considered as a formation of productive consciousness.

To begin with, there are good reasons to doubt whether the interpretation carried out by Cassirer and, in general, by neo-Kantian epistemology, of what Kant means by the “Copernican revolution” gets at the kernel of the transcendental problematic as an ontological problematic in its essential possibilities. But leaving that aside: can the critique of pure reason simply be “extended” to a “critique of culture”? Is it in fact so certain or is it not rather completely in question as to whether in the first place the foundations for Kant’s ownmost transcendental interpretation of “nature” have been explicitly elaborated and grounded? How do things stand with regard to the overall unavoidable ontological elaboration of the constitution and way of Being of what is named, vaguely enough, sometimes “consciousness,” sometimes “life,” sometimes “spirit,” sometimes “reason”? To be sure, before it becomes a question of the possible use of Kant in the sense of “extending” his problem, it is first of all necessary to clarify the basic and problematic demands harbored in the assumption that myth is a functional form of “spirit.” Only from here can it be decided whether and to what extent an appropriation of the questions or schemata posed by Kant is intrinsically possible and justified.

The interpretation of the essence of myth as a possibility of human Dasein remains random and directionless as long as it cannot be grounded in a radical ontology of Dasein in light of the problem of Being in general. The basic problems that arise here cannot be discussed in this context. Let it suffice if we can bring to light, through an immanent critique of Cassirer’s interpretation of myth, several of the main problems in their unavoidability, so as thereby to provide a philosophical refinement and clarification of the task posed by Cassirer. Cassirer himself stressed (Foreword, p. xiii) that his investigation was to be “merely a first beginning.”

The preoccupation with the neo-Kantian problem of consciousness is of such little help that it actually prevents gaining a grasp on the central problem. This is already evident in the arrangement of the work. Instead of taking up the interpretation of mythical Dasein in terms of a central characterization of the constitution of the Being of this being, Cassirer begins with an analysis of the mythical consciousness of objects, the form of its thought and the form of its intuition. Cassirer does indeed see clearly that the forms of thought and intuition must be traced back to the mythical “form of life” as the “spiritually primordial” (p. 89ff.) [Symbolic Forms, p. 69ff.]. But the explicit and systematic elucidation of the origin of the forms of thought and intuition from out of the “form of life” is nevertheless not carried through. That these original connections do not come to light, and that indeed the problem itself of the possible inner link between the forms of life, of thought, and of intuition is not even posed, demonstrates the indefiniteness of the systematic place of mana-representation to which Cassirer inevitably returns in his treatment of all essential mythical phenomena. The mana-representation is not dealt with among the forms of thought, and yet it is also not developed as a form of intuition. It is thematically discussed in the transition from the form of thought to the form of intuition under the title “The Basic Opposition.” This is more an expression of a predicament than it is the presentation of the structural determination of this “representation” from out of the whole structure of mythical Dasein as such. At the same time, however, the mana-representation is repeatedly designated as the “fundamental form of thought.” And Cassirer’s analysis of the mana-representation does indeed have a certain importance over and against the conventional interpretation, to the extent that he does not grasp the mana as a being among other beings but instead sees in it the “how” of everything that is mythically actual, namely, the Being of these beings. Only then, however, does the central problem emerge, insofar as it must be asked: is this fundamental “representation” simply present at hand in mythical Dasein, or does it belong to the ontological constitution of mythical Dasein? And if this latter, as what? In the mana-representation, what becomes evident is nothing other than the understanding of Being that belongs to every Dasein as such. This undergoes specific transformations according to each basic way of Dasein’s Being — in this case, the mythical — and it illuminates in advance thought and intuition. This insight, however, leads to the further question: which is the basic way of Being of mythical “life,” such that within this life precisely the mana-representation can function as the leading and illuminating understanding of Being? The possible answer to this question presupposes, to be sure, an anticipatory elaboration of the basic ontological constitution of Dasein as such. If this basic constitution lies in the “care” that is to be understood ontologically [cf. Sein und Zeit. Jahrb. f. Philos. u. phänomenolog. Forschung vol. VIII (1927), pp. 180-230], then it becomes clear that mythical Dasein is primarily determined through “thrownness.” We can give here only a preliminary indication of the manner in which a grounded articulation moves from “thrownness” to the ontological structure of mythical Dasein.

In “thrownness” there is a being-delivered-over of Dasein to the world, so that this being-in-the-world is overwhelmed by that to which it is delivered over. Overpoweringness as such is capable on the whole of announcing itself only for a being that is delivered over to something. In this being referred to the overpowering, Dasein is dazed by it and is capable therefore of experiencing itself only as belonging to and affiliated with this actuality itself. In thrownness any and all uncovered beings have, accordingly, the Being-character of overpoweringness (mana). If the ontological interpretation were to push forward to the specific “temporality” that grounds thrownness, then it could be made ontologically understandable why and how what is actual as mana always makes itself evident in a specific “instantaneousness.” In thrownness there is a proper being driven here and there that is open from out of itself for what is always in each case the suddenly extraordinary. The specific “categories” of mythical thought must then be “deduced” by following the guiding thread of the mana-representation.

Another phenomenon in this indissociable group emerges from out of the question concerning mythical Dasein’s basic comportment and its comportment to itself. The “first force” (power) in which mythical Dasein’s own Being becomes manifest to it, according to Cassirer is the force of the wish (p. 194) [Symbolic Forms, p. 157]. But why is it the first? We must make visible how this wishing is also rooted in thrownness and demonstrate how the (mere) wish, on the basis of a peculiar non-survey [Nichtüberschauen] of its many possibilities, can have the force of this efficacy. Only when wishing itself is understood in advance as bound to mana can it make itself evident as such an “effecting.” But when wishing is supposed to constitute the “confrontation” between world and I, then it must be noted that these kinds of comportment of mythical Dasein are always only ways according to which the transcendence of Dasein toward its world is unveiled but not first produced. The “confrontation” is grounded in the transcendence of Dasein. And mythical Dasein can thereby identify itself with Objects only because it comports itself to its world as a being-in-the-world. But how this properly understood transcendence can belong to Dasein has to be shown. Beginning with a chaos of “sensations” that are “formed” is not only insufficient for the philosophical problem of transcendence but already covers over the original phenomenon of transcendence as the condition for the possibility of any “passivity” Hence, a basic confusion also arises in Cassirer’s talk of “impressions”: sometimes what is meant is the pure sensation-like affection, sometimes, however, the being dazed by the actual itself, understood as bound to mana. To be sure, the mana is not grasped as a way of Being in mythical Dasein itself, but rather it is grasped as what is itself bound to mana, that is, it is represented as a being. For this reason the ontic interpretations of mana are also not completely unjustified.