Susanne K. Langer

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Susanne K. Langer (born December 20, 1895 in New York , † July 17, 1985 in Old Lyme ) was an American philosopher .

Life

Susanne K. Langer was born as Susanne Katherina Knauth in a wealthy family of German descent in New York. Her father was the lawyer and co-owner of a banking house Antonio Knauth . In 1916 she began studying philosophy with Henry Maurice Sheffer at Harvard University . Her main interest was "symbolic logic". From 1924 she studied with Alfred North Whitehead , who also supervised her dissertation. She taught from 1927 to 1942 as a tutor at Radcliffe College , worked as an assistant professor at the University of Delaware , as a lecturer at Columbia University . She has held visiting professorships at New York University , Northwestern University (Evanston campus), Ohio State University , Columbia University, the University of Washington (Seattle campus) and the University of Michigan . In 1954 she became a professor of philosophy at Connecticut College in New London (Connecticut) . In 1960 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , and in 1961 she retired .

For Langer, symbolic logic was the central instrument of philosophy until the end of the 1930s. In 1930 she published an introduction to philosophy under the title The Practice of Philosophy. Ludwig Wittgenstein , Bertrand Russell and Rudolf Carnap initially had a strong influence on their thinking. However, Langer did not limit her philosophical work to conceptual analysis, but saw the central task of philosophy in the construction of new concepts and conceptual contexts. Her book, An Introduction to Symbolic Logic , published in 1937, was one of the first introductions to modern symbolic logic .

1942 appeared under the title Philosophy in a New Key. A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite and Art her most important book. The work is strongly influenced by Ernst Cassirer's philosophy and became a bestseller. Susanne K. Langer also made the distinction made in this work between “discursive” and “presentative symbolization” known in the German-speaking world and became the basis of her aesthetic theory. The presentative symbolization enables the articulation of “visual forms”, of “ideas” that oppose linguistic projection. This makes it possible for works of art to be understood as symbols. In the Wittgensteinian sense, art provides symbols for the “unspeakable”, the life of feelings, which is the subject of art.

Fonts

  • The Cruise of the Little Dipper and Other Fairy Tales (1924, illustrated by Helen Sewall)
  • The Practice of Philosophy (New York 1930, with foreword by Alfred North Whitehead)
  • An Introduction to Symbolic Logic (Boston / New York, London 1937)
  • Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art. (Cambridge Mass. 1942); German Philosophy on a new path. The symbol in thought, rite and art (Frankfurt 1965, Munich 1980)
  • Language and Myth (1946), translator, from Sprache und Mythos (1925) by Ernst Cassirer, ISBN 978-0-486-20051-4 .
  • Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key. (New York 1953); German Feel and form. A Theory of Art (Hamburg 2018)
  • Problems of Art: Ten Philosophical Lectures. (London / New York 1957)
  • Reflections on Art. (1961) editor.
  • Philosophical Sketches. 1962
  • Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. (1967/82) three volumes, Part I (Baltimore 1967), Part II (Baltimore 1973), Part III (1982)

literature

  • Rolf Lachmann: Susanne K. Langer. The living form of human feeling and understanding . Fink, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-7705-3462-X .
  • Agnes Neumayr: Politics of Emotions. Susanne K. Langer and Hannah Arendt . IUP, Innsbruck University Press, Innsbruck 2009, ISBN 978-3-902571-84-7 (Dissertation University of Innbruck, 2009).
  • Silke M. Kledzik: Susanne Katherina Langer. In: Encyclopedia Philosophy and Philosophy of Science, Volume 2: HO . Edited by Jürgen Mittelstraß , (4 volumes), BI, Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1984, ISBN 3-411-01604-3 .
  • Martina Sauer: Aesthetics and Pragmatism. On the functional relevance of a non-discursive conception of form in Cassirer, Langer and Krois In: IMAGE 20 - Journal for interdisciplinary image science, K. Sachs-Hombach, J. Schirra, St. Schwan, HJ Wulff (ed.), 2014, ISSN  1614- 0885 digitized .
  • Martina Sauer: Image power and energy: On the relationship between aesthetic experience and technology following Cassirer, Langer and Krois In: Birgit Recki (Ed.), Techne - poiesis - aisthesis (= congress files, German Society for Aesthetics , Volume 3 / 2015: 1–25 ): digitized version .
  • Martina Sauer: Iconology and formal aesthetics: a new unity. A contribution to the current debate in art history and art philosophy following the (picture) nude theories Susanne K. Langers and John M. Krois In: [Sztuka i Filozofia (Art and Philosophy)] , Warsaw / Poland, Volume 48/2016 : 12-29 , ISSN  1230-0330 digitized .

Web links

Wikiquote: Susanne K. Langer  - Quotes
personal data
SURNAME Langer, Susanne K.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Knauth, Susanne Katherina (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH new York
DATE OF DEATH 17th July 1985
Place of death new York