Cassirer's concentrated on a critique of philosophical anthropology and specifically of Max Scheler's version of this new trend. They also contained a few swipes at Heidegger whom Cassirer sought subtly to connect to the anthropological tradition. Heidegger, in turn, criticized the neo-Kantian interpretation of Kant which, he said, had reduced the first Critique to a theory of knowledge for the natural sciences when it should in fact be read as laying the groundwork of a metaphysics -- a somewhat contentious claim that Heidegger would elaborate in his book Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, published in late 1929.
Heidegger's provocative thesis was also to form the basis of the debate between him and Cassirer, which was the recognized high point of the entire 1929 seminar sessions at Davos. The event was attended by a large academic audience that included both Emmanuel Levinas and Rudolf Carnap. Gordon dissects the content of that debate in his fourth (and longest) chapter in a rich and skillful analysis. He reproduces the entire transcript of the event composed at the time by two younger German philosophers, interspersed with his own perceptive comments. Cassirer had begun the debate with the question: "What does Heidegger understand by neo-Kantianism?" And Heidegger responded by forcefully restating his view that the neo-Kantian philosophers "were united in the conviction that, given the apparent supremacy of the natural sciences, the sole task left for philosophy was to furnish a theoretical ground-work for natural scientific knowledge."
.
