Susanne Langer

Susanne Katherina Langer (née Knauth) (December 20, 1895 – July 17, 1985) was an American philosopher of mind and of art, who was influenced by Ernst Cassirer and Alfred North Whitehead. She was one of the first women to achieve an academic career in philosophy and the first woman to be popularly and professionally recognized as an American philosopher. Langer is best known for her 1942 book entitled, Philosophy in a New Key.

Works

Books

• The Cruise of the Little Dipper, and Other Fairy Tales, 1924. Illustrated by Helen Sewall.

• The Practice of Philosophy, foreword Alfred North Whitehead, 1930.

• An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, 1937.
  • Introduccion a la logica simbolica, Siglo Veintiuno, 1969. (Spanish)

• Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art, 1942.
  • Philosophie auf neuem Wege. Das Symbol im Denken, im Ritus und in der Kunst, Frankfurt, 1965; Munich, 1980. (German)
  • Filosofia em nova chave, Perspectiva, 2004. (Portuguese)
  • Shinboru no tetsugaku, [シンボルの哲学], Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1960, 379 pp. (Japanese)

• Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art, New York: Scribner, 1953.
  • Sentimiento y forma: una teoría del arte desarrollada a partir de una nueva clase de filosofía, trans. Mario Cárdenas and Luis Octavio Hernández, México D.F.: UNAM, 1967, 403 pp. (Spanish)
  • 感情と形式 [Kanjō to keishiki], 2 vols., 1970-71. (Japanese)
  • Sentimento e forma, Perspectiva, 1980. (Portuguese)
  • Qing gan yu xing shi [情感与行式], Beijing: Zhongguo she hui ke xue chu ban she, 1986, 484 pp; Nanjing: Jiangsu ren min chu ban she, 2013, 458 pp. (Chinese)

• Problems of Art: Ten Philosophical Lectures, New York: Scribner, 1957.
  • Los Problemas del arte: diez conferencias filosóficas, Infinito, 1966. (Spanish)
  • Geijutsu to wa nani ka [芸術とは何か], Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1967, iv+228 pp. (Japanese)
  • Yi shu wen ti [艺术问题], Beijing: Zhongguo she hui ke xue chu ban she, 1983; Nanjing Shi: Nanjing chu ban she, 2006, 188 pp. (Chinese)

• editor, Reflections on Art, 1961.

• Philosophical Sketches, 1962.
  • Ensaios filosóficos, Cultrix, 1971. (Portuguese)
  • Tetsugakuteki sobyo [哲学的素描], 2000, 242 pp. (Japanese)

• Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, 3 vols., 1967, 1972, and 1982.

Translations

• Ernst Cassirer, Language and Myth, 1946. From Sprache und Mythos, 1925.

Articles

• "Confusion of Symbols and Confusion of Logical Types", Mind 35, 1926, pp 222–229.
• "Form and Content: A Study in Paradox", Journal of Philosophy 23, 1926, pp 435–438.
• "A Logical Study of Verbs", Journal of Philosophy 24, 1927, pp 120–129.
• "The Treadmill of Systematic Doubt", Journal of Philosophy 26, 1929, pp 379–384.
• "Facts: The Logical Perspectives of the World", Journal of Philosophy 30, 1933, pp 178–187.
• "On a Fallacy in ‘Scientific Fatalism’", International Journal of Ethics 46, 1936, pp 473–483.
• "The Lord of Creation", Fortune 29, January 1944, pp 127–154.
• "Why Philosophy?", Saturday Evening Post 234, 13 May 1961, pp 34–35, 54, 56.
• "Henry M. Sheffer", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 25, 1964, pp 305–307.

Literature

• Fred Blum, Susanne Langer's Music Aesthetics, 1954.
• Morris Weitz, "Symbolism and Art", Review of Metaphysics 7 (1954).
• Beverly Wayne Shirbroun, Music and Human Feeling in Susanne Langer's Aesthetic Theory, 1964.
• Rita LaPlante Raffman, Susanne Langer's Theory of Music as Symbol of Feeling: A Critique, 1978
• R.K. Ghosh, Aesthetric Theory and Art: A Study in Susanne K. Langer, 1979.
• Rolf Lachmann, Susanne K. Langer. Die lebendige Form menschlichen Fühlens und Verstehens, Munich: Fink, 2000. (German)
• William Schultz, Cassirer and Langer on Myth: An Introduction, 2000.
• Robert E. Innis, Susanne Langer in Focus: The Symbolic Mind, Indiana University Press, 2008, 296 pp.

Links

• Langer at Wikipedia