Philosophy now finds itself in a multipolar world, defined by global commercial, scientific and cultural exchange. At any given point in this world, a multitude of norms, traditions, and habits come together in many ways. ›The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms‹ developped by E. Cassirer offers many insights that help to understand the fabric of such a world, but it needs to be revised and critically developed. This book seeks to extract the essential insights of Cassirer concerning the key function of the symbolic in human life, and to develop them in light of other, more socially grounded philosophy, and of sources from the Japanese traditions.