Susanne Katherina Langer (1895–1985,) née Knauth, was an American philosopher, writer, and educator, recognized as one of the first American women to establish an academic career in philosophy. She became the first woman to gain professional recognition as an American philosopher, known for her theories on how art influences the mind.
Born in New York City, Langer earned her bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College in 1920. She pursued graduate studies in philosophy at Harvard, receiving a master’s degree in 1924 and a doctorate in 1926. She later taught at Radcliffe 1927–42 and held positions at the University of Delaware, Columbia University, and Connecticut College.
Influenced by German Neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer, Langer made significant contributions to aesthetics and linguistic analysis. Her influential work Philosophy in a New Key (1942) examined the connections between logic, meaning, and the human mind. Feeling and Form (1953) expanded on these ideas, exploring how art expresses emotions beyond words. In her three-volume work Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (1967, 1972, 1982,) she traced the origin and development of the mind.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Susanne Langer
The fairytale is irresponsible; it is frankly imaginary, and its purpose is to gratify wishes, as a dream doth flatter.
—Susanne Langer
If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world of new questions.
—Susanne Langer
Topics: Knowledge, Questioning
Tragedy dramatizes human life as potentiality and fulfillment. Its virtual future, or Destiny, is therefore quite different from that created in comedy. Comic Destiny is Fortune.
—Susanne Langer
Art is the objectification of feeling, and the subjectification of nature.
—Susanne Langer
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