Susanne Langer and the American Development of Analytic Philosophy

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterScientificpeer-review

    Abstract

    Susanne K. Langer is best known as a philosopher of culture and student of Ernst Cassirer. In this chapter, however, I argue that this standard picture ignores her contributions to the development of analytic philosophy in the 1920s and 1930s. I reconstruct the reception of Langer’s first book The Practice of Philosophy—arguably the first sustained defense of analytic philosophy by an American philosopher—and describe how prominent European philosophers of science such as Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, and Herbert Feigl viewed her as one of the most important allies in the United States. In the second half of this chapter, I turn to Langer’s best-selling Philosophy in a New Key and reconstruct her attempts to broaden the scope of the, by then, rapidly growing U.S. analytic movement. I argue that her book anticipated various developments in analytic philosophy but was largely ignored by her former colleagues. I end the chapter by offering some clues as to why New Key did not incite the same laudatory responses from analytic philosophers as her earlier work.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationWomen in the History of Analytic Philosophy
    EditorsJeanne Peijnenburg, Sander Verhaegh
    PublisherSpringer
    Pages219-244
    ISBN (Electronic)978-3-031-08593-2
    ISBN (Print)978-3-031-08592-5
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2022

    Keywords

    • Susanne Katherina Langer
    • Analytic Philosophy

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Susanne Langer and the American Development of Analytic Philosophy'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this