Susanne Langer

Life

Susanne K. Langer was born Susanne Katherina Knauth in a wealthy German family in New York. Her father was a lawyer and co-owner of a bank Antonio Knauth. In 1916 she began studying philosophy at Henry Maurice Sheffer at Harvard University. My 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 was a visiting professor 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 was Professor of Philosophy at Connecticut College in New London ( Connecticut ). In 1961 she became Professor Emeritus.

For Langer symbolic logic was until the end of the 30s the central instrument of philosophy. Under the title The Practice of Philosophy 1930, she published an introduction to the philosophy. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell and Rudolf Carnap initially had a strong influence on their thinking. However, not long limited their philosophical work on the concept analysis, but they saw the central task of philosophy in the design of new concepts and concept relationships. Her book An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, published in 1937, was one of the first introductions to the modern symbolic logic.

In 1942, under the title Philosophy in a New Key. A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite and Art her most important book - the only way, under the title Philosophy in new ways. The symbol in thinking, was translated in the rite, and art into German. The work is strongly influenced by the philosophy of Ernst Cassirer and became a bestseller. The decision taken in this work to distinguish between " discursive " and " symbolization of representative " Susanne K. Langer has also been disclosed in the German language and was based on their aesthetic theory. The presentational symbolization allows the articulation of " visual forms," ​​of " ideas" that oppose it linguistic projection. Thus, it is possible that works of art can be understood as symbols. So the art supplies in Wittgenstein's sense icons for the " unspeakable " is the life of feelings, the subject of art.

Works

  • The Cruise of the Little Dipper, and Other Fairy Tales (1924 illustrated by Helen Sewall )
  • The Practice of Philosophy ( New York, 1930, 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. ); Dt. Philosophy on new paths. The symbol in thinking, ritual and in art ( Frankfurt 1965, Munich 1980)
  • Language and Myth (1946 ), translator, from language and myth (1925 ) by Ernst Cassirer ISBN 978-0-486-20051-4
  • Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Plilosophy in a New Key (New York 1953)
  • 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 )
December 20 1895 July 17 1985 Old Lyme, Connecticut Henry M. Sheffer New London (Connecticut) Integrated Authority File
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