Overview

This book is a comprehensive study of one of the most insightful and fertile but also most neglected philosophers of the twentieth century, Susanne Langer. Failure to recognise Langer’s seminal philosophical sources has led to frequent misinterpretations and misunderstandings of her unique philosophical thought. Beginning with an overview of Langer’s life and education, this study provides a much-needed explanation of how Langer’s thinking was shaped by four seminal sources: her mentors Henry Sheffer and Alfred North Whitehead and the European philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Langer’s ability to unite seemingly disparate fields such logic, art, and embodied cognition around the notion of symbolic form, places aesthetics not at the margins of philosophy but at its very centre. By locating Langer’s work in the broader context of major developments in twentieth-century European and American philosophy, Dengerink Chaplin shows how she was often ahead of her time. Shedding new light on Langer as an American philosopher whose innovative thought crosses the customary boundaries between analytic and continental philosophy, this book confirms why she continues to have relevance today.

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9781350254039

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Reviews

It is an impeccably edited, well-crafted, well-documented book, and a true treasure trove for those interested in this subject. ... let’s be grateful for what we have—a splendid work. * Philosophia Reformata * Through meticulous research, astute analysis, and insightful interpretation, Dengerink Chaplin shows how Langer combined ideas from Wittgenstein, Whitehead, and Cassirer into an ambitious and original philosophy of art and mind. Often ignored or misunderstood, Langer was an important thinker ahead of her time. Her work deserves to be revisited; this path-breaking book tells us why. * Lambert Zuidervaart,Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Institute for Christian Studies and University of Toronto, Canada. * Early in my career as a philosopher of art I dipped into Susanne Langer's writings on art. I thought I understood them. Reading Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin's book on Langer has shown me that I understood very little. The depth, the subtlety, passed me by. And of the extraordinary breadth of her philosophy in general, I knew nothing. What an eye-opener this deeply researched book has been for me -- and will be for many others. This is a Langer we knew not! * Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University, USA * No matter how novel a new philosophical framework is or appears to be, it has antecedents and roots that influence and nourish it and without which it would not be possible to understand it. With this as her guiding thread, Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin has produced an insightful and indispensable account of the genesis and structure of Susanne Langer's lifelong researches on the symbolic processes and structures that create the meanings we live by. * Robert E. Innis, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA * It would be impossible to imagine a better introduction to Langer for contemporary audiences. Dengerink Chaplin has engaged the entirety of Langer’s philosophical corpus, situated in its historical context, and shown in depth and detail the salience of her project to contemporary questions and concerns. Anyone interested in language, consciousness, mind, art and symbolism in all of its forms would profit immensely from reading this work. * Vincent Colapietro, Adjunct Professor of the Humanities, University of Rhode Island, USA * This is the book on Langer that the scholarly community has been waiting for: a go-to reference for all the main aspects of her thought, her original ideas along with her complex relations with the top intellectuals of her day. One can read this volume as an introduction to philosophy in the 20th century, how it changed, grew, and in some ways declined. * Randall Auxier, Professor of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA *

Through meticulous research, astute analysis, and insightful interpretation, Dengerink Chaplin shows how Langer combined ideas from Wittgenstein, Whitehead, and Cassirer into an ambitious and original philosophy of art and mind. Often ignored or misunderstood, Langer was an important thinker ahead of her time. Her work deserves to be revisited; this path-breaking book tells us why. * Lambert Zuidervaart,Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Institute for Christian Studies and University of Toronto, Canada. * Early in my career as a philosopher of art I dipped into Susanne Langer's writings on art. I thought I understood them. Reading Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin's book on Langer has shown me that I understood very little. The depth, the subtlety, passed me by. And of the extraordinary breadth of her philosophy in general, I knew nothing. What an eye-opener this deeply researched book has been for me -- and will be for many others. This is a Langer we knew not! * Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University, USA * No matter how novel a new philosophical framework is or appears to be, it has antecedents and roots that influence and nourish it and without which it would not be possible to understand it. With this as her guiding thread, Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin has produced an insightful and indispensable account of the genesis and structure of Susanne Langer's lifelong researches on the symbolic processes and structures that create the meanings we live by. * Robert E. Innis, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA * It would be impossible to imagine a better introduction to Langer for contemporary audiences. Dengerink Chaplin has engaged the entirety of Langer's philosophical corpus, situated in its historical context, and shown in depth and detail the salience of her project to contemporary questions and concerns. Anyone interested in language, consciousness, mind, art and symbolism in all of its forms would profit immensely from reading this work. * Vincent Colapietro, Adjunct Professor of the Humanities, University of Rhode Island, USA * This is the book on Langer that the scholarly community has been waiting for: a go-to reference for all the main aspects of her thought, her original ideas along with her complex relations with the top intellectuals of her day. One can read this volume as an introduction to philosophy in the 20th century, how it changed, grew, and in some ways declined. * Randall Auxier, Professor of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA *

Author Information

Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin is a Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London, UK.

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