Cassirer–Heidegger debate
The Cassirer–Heidegger debate is an encounter between the philosophers Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer in March 1929 during the Second Davos Hochschulkurs which held its opening session in the Hotel Belvédère in Davos on March 17, 1929. The debate was about the significance of Kantian notions of freedom and rationality.
Cassirer argues that while Kant's Critique of Pure Reason emphasizes human temporality and finitude, he also sought to situate human cognition within a broader conception of humanity. Cassirer challenges Heidegger's relativism by invoking the universal validity of truths discovered by the exact and moral sciences.
In , Peter E. Gordon reconstructs the debate between Heidegger and Cassirer, demonstrating its significance as a point of rupture in Continental thought that implicated all the major philosophical movements of the day. Continental Divide was awarded the Jacques Barzun Prize from the American Philosophical Society in 2010.
Rudolf Carnap was also in the audience at Davos.
