Langer, Susanne K

Langer, Susanne K(nauth)

(born Dec. 20, 1895, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died July 17, 1985, Old Lyme, Conn.) U.S. philosopher. After receiving her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1926, she taught at Harvard (1927–42) and at Columbia University (1945–50, 1954–61). In Philosophy in a New Key (1942), she presented a novel interpretation of the meaning of art. Her Feeling and Form (1953) proposed that art, especially music, is a highly articulated form of expression symbolizing intuitive knowledge of life patterns that ordinary language cannot convey. She traced the origin and development of the mind in her three-volume work Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling.