Abstract

This chapter outlines some key thinkers on myth who would prove influential in subsequent debates on the subject, spanning works from Vico to Cassirer. It pays particular attention to Cassirer and his conception of myth in politics under the Nazi regime. This book considers the key themes that would later be traced up to the works of Cassirer, and the conception of myth he brings through his ‘Philosophy of Symbolic Forms’. A combination of Cassirer’s important ‘Davos Debate’ with Heidegger, and the former’s later posthumous publication ‘The Myth of the State’, came to influence much of Blumenberg’s classic ‘Work on Myth.’ Drawing from the insights of the previous chapters, this chapter outlines how Blumenberg develops a theory of myth that remains essential today.