An Essay on Man
E160417
An Essay on Man is a philosophical work by Ernst Cassirer that explores human nature and culture through the concept of humans as "symbolic animals."
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| An Essay on Man canonical | 2 |
| An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1396177 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: An Essay on Man Context triple: [Ernst Cassirer, notableWork, An Essay on Man]
-
A.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical work by David Hume that presents a skeptical examination of arguments for the existence and nature of God through a series of fictional dialogues.
-
B.
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous is a philosophical work by George Berkeley that presents his arguments for immaterialism and critiques of skepticism through a conversational dialogue format.
-
C.
Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect
Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect is an unfinished philosophical work by Baruch Spinoza that outlines a method for improving the mind to attain true knowledge and intellectual perfection.
-
D.
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge is George Berkeley’s seminal philosophical work in which he develops his idealist theory that reality consists only of minds and their ideas, denying the existence of material substance.
-
E.
Meditations on First Philosophy
Meditations on First Philosophy is René Descartes’ foundational philosophical treatise in which he employs radical doubt to establish certain knowledge and famously argues for the distinction between mind and body.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: An Essay on Man Target entity description: An Essay on Man is a philosophical work by Ernst Cassirer that explores human nature and culture through the concept of humans as "symbolic animals."
-
A.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical work by David Hume that presents a skeptical examination of arguments for the existence and nature of God through a series of fictional dialogues.
-
B.
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous is a philosophical work by George Berkeley that presents his arguments for immaterialism and critiques of skepticism through a conversational dialogue format.
-
C.
Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect
Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect is an unfinished philosophical work by Baruch Spinoza that outlines a method for improving the mind to attain true knowledge and intellectual perfection.
-
D.
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge is George Berkeley’s seminal philosophical work in which he develops his idealist theory that reality consists only of minds and their ideas, denying the existence of material substance.
-
E.
Meditations on First Philosophy
Meditations on First Philosophy is René Descartes’ foundational philosophical treatise in which he employs radical doubt to establish certain knowledge and famously argues for the distinction between mind and body.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (44)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
philosophical work ⓘ |
| aimsTo | provide an introduction to a philosophy of human culture ⓘ |
| author | Ernst Cassirer ⓘ |
| centralConcept | human beings as symbolic animals ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Germany ⓘ |
| describesHumanAs | animal symbolicum ⓘ |
| focusesOn |
art as symbolic form
ⓘ
history as symbolic form ⓘ language as symbolic form ⓘ myth as symbolic form ⓘ religion as symbolic form ⓘ symbolic activities of humans ⓘ |
| follows | The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms ⓘ |
| genre |
philosophical anthropology
ⓘ
philosophy of culture ⓘ |
| hasEnglishTranslation |
An Essay on Man
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture
|
| hasPart |
chapter on art
ⓘ
chapter on history ⓘ chapter on language ⓘ chapter on myth ⓘ chapter on religion ⓘ conclusion ⓘ introduction ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
critique of traditional metaphysical anthropology
ⓘ
mediation of reality through symbols ⓘ unity of human culture through symbolic forms ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Immanuel Kant
ⓘ
Neo-Kantianism ⓘ philosophy of symbolic forms ⓘ |
| language | German ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
culture
ⓘ
human nature ⓘ philosophical anthropology ⓘ symbolic forms ⓘ |
| notableIdea |
culture as a system of symbolic forms
ⓘ
man cannot be defined by metaphysical essence but by symbolic activity ⓘ |
| originalTitle | Versuch über den Menschen ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition |
Neo-Kantianism
ⓘ
surface form:
Marburg Neo-Kantianism
|
| publicationYear | 1944 ⓘ |
| publisher | Yale University Press ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
Language and Myth
ⓘ
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms ⓘ |
| timePeriod | 20th-century philosophy ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: An Essay on Man Description of subject: An Essay on Man is a philosophical work by Ernst Cassirer that explores human nature and culture through the concept of humans as "symbolic animals."
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture