author
Susanne K. (Susanne Katherina Knauth) Langer
1895–1985
A major American philosopher of art and meaning, she argued that symbols shape how people think, feel, and understand the world. Her writing helped bring aesthetics into the center of twentieth-century philosophy.
1 Audiobook
The Cruise of the Little Dipper, and Other Fairy Tales
by Susanne K. (Susanne Katherina Knauth) Langer
About the author
Born in New York on December 20, 1895, Susanne Katherina Knauth Langer became one of the best-known American philosophers of her time. She studied at Radcliffe College and Harvard, where she worked in the orbit of Alfred North Whitehead, and later taught at several universities while building a career as a writer and lecturer.
She is best remembered for exploring how symbolism works in human life. In Philosophy in a New Key and later in Feeling and Form, she argued that art is not just decoration or self-expression, but a serious way of giving form to feeling and experience. That idea made her an important voice in aesthetics, philosophy of mind, and the study of culture.
Langer was also notable as one of the earliest American women to establish a prominent academic career in philosophy. She died in Connecticut on July 17, 1985, but her work continues to matter to readers interested in music, art, language, and the ways people make meaning.