Susanne Langer (1895 – 1985) was an American teacher and philosopher whose contributions to US semiotics included:
- Philosophy in a New Key: A study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (1942)
- Feeling and Form (1953)
- Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling Volume I (1967), Volume II (1967), and Volume III (1982)
Key to her study of symbolism is the sharp distinction between discursive and presentative (non-discursive) forms of symbolization. A language is a discursive form, art is a non-discursive or presentative form. In response to the way Langer describes and applies this distinction, one may be tempted to recall that “we naturally give too much absolutism to all differences” (CP 7.438).
The study of symbols “occurs where advances in education have left uncultivated plowed fields. Perhaps they contain the seeds of a new intellectual harvest that will be reaped in the next season of human understanding” (1942, 33).
Like Charles s. Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure before her, Langer foresees the emergence of an in-depth study of human symbols that will contain the promise of clarifying the understanding of ourselves.
