Susanne Langer

Langer worked between 1895 and 1985 across philosopher, university teacher, writer and literary scholar. This article rests on 1 published texts and 47 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

Susanne Langer studied at Radcliffe College and Harvard University. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is philosophy of mind. Distinctions recorded are Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• Region — Western philosophy • Era — 20th-century philosophy • Name — Susanne Langer • Birth Name — Susanne Katerina Knauth • Born — December 20, 1895 • Birthplace — New York City, U.S. • Died — 17 July 1985 • Place of death — Old Lyme, Connecticut, U.S. • Education — Radcliffe College (BA, PhD) • School Tradition — Process philosophy • Main Interests — Philosophy of mind, aesthetics • Notable Ideas — Distinction between discursive and presentational symbols • Doctoral Advisor — Alfred North Whitehead • Institutions — Radcliffe College, University of Delaware, Columbia University, Connecticut College

Born Susanne Katherina Knauth, Langer was raised in Manhattan's West Side in New York City. She was the daughter of Antonio Knauth, an attorney, and Else Uhlich, both immigrants from Germany. Though she was American born, Langer's primary language was German, as it was strictly spoken in her household throughout her youth, and her German accent remained for her entire life. She was exposed thoroughly to creativity and art, most specifically through music. She was taught to play the cello and the piano, and she continued with the cello for the rest of her life. As a girl, Langer enjoyed reciting the works of great poets as well as traditional children's rhymes and tales. This formed her love for reading and writing, and she would often write her own poems and stories to entertain her younger siblings. Her love of nature began during the summers her family spent in their cottage on Lake George. She married William Leonard Langer, a fellow student at Harvard, in 1921, and in the same year the couple took their studies to Vienna, Austria. They had two sons and moved back to Cambridge, Massachusetts before they divorced in 1942. She died July 17, 1985.

Her early education included attendance at Veltin School for Girls, a private school, as well as being tutored from home. In 1916, Langer enrolled at Radcliffe College. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1920 and continued with graduate studies in philosophy at Harvard, where she received a master's degree in 1924 and a doctorate in 1926. She returned to Radcliffe as a tutor in philosophy from 1927 to 1942. She lectured in philosophy for one year at the University of Delaware and for five years at Columbia University (1945–1950). From 1954 to 1962, she taught at Connecticut College. She also taught philosophy at the University of Michigan, New York University, Northwestern University, Ohio University, Smith College, Vassar College, the University of Washington, and Wellesley College.

Langer's desire to study the mind and its connections with art was rooted in her theory that works of art are representations of human feeling and expression. This led Langer to construct a biological theory of feeling that explains that "feeling" is an inherently biological concept that can be connected to evolutionary genetics. In her essay, "Mind"', Langer tries to connect the early evolution of man to how we perceive the mind today. She explains that early organisms underwent refining through natural selection, in which certain behaviors and functions were shaped in order for them to survive. Langer describes the body's organs all operating with specific rhythms, and these rhythms must cooperate with one another to keep the organism alive. This development, Langer explains, was the beginning of the framework for the central nervous system, which Langer believed to be the heart of cognitive interactions among humans.

Susanne Langer's work with symbolism and meaning has led to her association with contemporary rhetoric, although her influence in the field is somewhat debated. Langer established the use of symbols as the "epistemic unit of community", suggesting that all knowledge in a community is gained and built from shared symbol-systems within a given culture. Langer's concept regarding language and dialogue may be understood to imply that language does not simply communicate, but it produces symbols from which humans then create their own reality. Claimed support of this perspective comes from Langer's statement that "language is intrinsic to thinking, imagining, even our ways of perceiving". [9] According to Arabella Lyon, professor at State University of New York, Langer holds that meaning arises from the relationship between a community, its discourse, and the individual. Lyon suggests that Langer's work may be viewed as a contradiction to the comparatively traditional theories of Aristotle, by way of Langer's argument that discourse forms through sensory experiences shared between speaker and hearer, rather than through logic as advocated by the philosopher. Langer's epistemic view of symbolism and language, which further examines the motivation of the speaker, the influential aspects of language that affect people, and the relationship between the speaker and the community, are often reflected in aspects of modern rhetorical studies.

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Susanne Langer is recorded with the occupation university teacher. Recorded with the occupation literary scholar. Recorded as philosopher, university teacher, writer and literary scholar.

• Illustration — Poster with a quotation of Susanne Langer in Portuguese Langer's works were largely influenced by fellow philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead, an English mathematician and philosophy professor, was Langer's professor at Radcliffe. Whitehead introduced Langer to the history of human thought, the origins of the modern world, and contemporary philosophy. He helped shape her perspective on these topics which she presented in her first text, The Practice of Philosophy. Throughout her career, Whitehead continued to influence her understanding of the complicated world of human thought which guided her to pursue a philosophical career. She shared Whitehead's belief in going beyond the limitations of scientific research and believed that along with the new-found thinking and ideas that had initiated the modern era in science and philosophy, the opportunity for a rebirth of philosophical creativity would arise. Langer dedicated Philosophy in a New Key to "Alfred North Whitehead, my great Teacher and Friend". Susanne Langer's other main influence was the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer. Cassirer was a neo-Kantian who studied theories of symbolization. Cassirer influenced much of Langer's ideas in Philosophy in a New Key, where she stated that the creation of symbols is the essential activity of art, myth, rite, the sciences, mathematics, and philosophy. She stated, "It is a peculiar fact that every major advance in thinking, every epoch-making new insight, springs from a new type of symbolic transformation". She drew from Cassirer's view in her belief that art theory must be interdependent with a theory of mind.

• Illustration — A fossil leaf of Langeria magnifica Named for Langer by Wolfe & Wehr, 1987 Susanne Langer had an influence in many fields: for example, she has been cited by psychologist Abraham Maslow in Motivation and Personality (1954), by urban planner Kevin A. Lynch in The Image of the City (1960), by inventor William J. J. Gordon in Synectics (1961), by philosopher (epistemology and aesthetics) Louis Arnaud Reid in Ways of Knowledge and Experience (1961), by anthropologist Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), by art scholar Ellen Dissanayake in Homo Aestheticus (1992), and by digital media theorist Janet Murray in Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997). She is both cited and excerpted in Melvin Rader's classic compilation, A Modern Book of Esthetics, that has been widely used for several decades as a standard college text in esthetics.