Panel on Langer´s Philosophy and Legacy with Donald Dryden (USA), Tereza Hadravová (CZ), Martina Sauer (DE), and the editor of the Bloomsbury Handbook of Susanne K. Langer, London 2023 and at the same time organizer of the Round Table Lona Gaikis (AT/CAN): Department Giurisprudenza   Aula XIII “Massimo D'Antona”, Campus La Sapienza University, Rome.

Logician and philosopher of art S. K. Langer (1895–1985) is a remarkable figure of twentieth-century thought. She devoted her philosophical engagement to mathematical and linguistic questions, and had a deeply ingrained curiosity for the meaning of the forms of art. In this, Langer continued E. Cassirer and A. N. Whitehead’s attempts towards a broader symbolistic turn. In review of twentieth century philosophy, and the female voices that shaped it, her work is currently experiencing a renaissance.
 
This round table collects international scholars from various fields (philosophy, arts, aesthetics, psychology and theoretical biology) engaged in Langer’s work and its generative ideas.
 
Which aspects, brought into the present day, have visionary potential, offering, e.g., an organic theory of feeling as a new avenue in biology? Can her concept of mind aid in navigating an age of Human-like artificial systems?
 

Transcript of Martina Sauer´s contribution

ROUND TABLE:

SUSANNE K. LANGER’S PHILOSOPHY AND LEGACY

FRIDAY, 2. AUGUST 2024, 15:00-17:00

CU002 | Giurisprudenza | Aula XIII “Massimo D'Antona”

Campus La Sapienza University, Rome

“Why read Langer now?”

“What is, according to you, Langer’s most influential idea?”

 And: “What do you do with Langer’s thought?”

Martina Sauer [Introduction]

Thank you all for being here and listening to us, and thinking about Langer with us. As an art historian and a philosopher and interested in biology, I have several connections to Langer. And from the very beginning of my studies, I have been interested in why art is such an interesting form of expression, what is art’s secret, how does it function, and what thrills us about art? All these questions were leading me. And you can say that Langer is one of the anchors that helped me understand these questions.

“Why read Langer now?”

So, why read Langer now after such a long time of research, 24 years now? Since 2011, I have read and written a lot by and about Langer. And that is why she is the main figure in my research. And as a why to read Langer now, it's her relevance not only to art, but to the conditio humana in general, that, I think, is the most important insight that can be derived from Langer. This is my central point in research on her, and also the central aspect of my concept of vitality semiotics. (Sauer 2024, Towards Vitality Semiotics and a New Understanding of the Conditio Humana in Susanne K. Langer. In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Susanne K. Langer, edited by Lona Gaikis, Chap. 15, 223-238). After researching art history and aesthetics, areas of research that were natural to me, I first came across Langer in 2011 in connection with questions about the philosophy of perception. Since then, I have read and written a lot by and about Langer, and she has become a central figure in my research.

 And why one should read Langer today: The reasons for this lie in her relevance not only for art, but for the conditio humana in general, which, I think, is the most important insight that can be derived from Langer. This is my central point in research on her, and also the central aspect of my concept of Vitality Semiotics. That means I followed her approach and did something on top. Following Langer is, it can be concluded that the human condition is not based on discursive aspects, but primarily on non-discursive aspects that are characterized by affectively relevant affects accompanied by feelings. Recognizing and understanding them is also the basis of communication. And so you can see that I follow a communication theory. This concept is perhaps a little uncommon at Langer, especially in the arts, but I think it has a basis. So, I follow her with regard to a theory of communication, action and understanding. Langer excluded the arts from this conclusion although she developed her idea in a general theory of act. This was elaborated by her in first and second volume of Mind. An Essay on Human Feeling, published in 1967 and 1972 .

With the concept of Vitality Semiotics, I'm therefore sharing three common research interests with Langer, which I would like to introduce to you in more detail. They relate to biological or embodiment theories, on cultural anthropological backgrounds in philosophy, and last but not least, to the arts. The common path deals with affective and effective relevant abstract forms, which can be perceived and, contrary to her assumptions, also shaped. That means, from my point of view, they can be designed intentionally.

First, as far as embodiment theories are concerned, already Langer has investigated biological backgrounds in order to prove her act theory. In her second book on Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling from 1972, she dealt exclusively with the current state of biological research. However, it was only in more recent research by the American Daniel N. Stern on child psychology in 1985 (Stern 1985, The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York) that groundbreaking new aspects came for solving the open questions. They led to a close collaboration between Stern, the discoverer of mirror neurons in Parma, in Italy, and to my approach in the philosophy of art. At the beginning, in 2015, this was done in collaboration with neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese [and his doctoral student Katrin Heimann who was my former student. This failed because our joint research project with Zürich and Basel was rejected by the Swiss National Science Foundation because the only reviewer, an artist, counldn´t believe that art communicates.] Today it is neuroscientists and Stern specialist Giuseppe Di Cesare and his doctoral student Giada Lombardi, with whom I am conducting a research project that follows the original approach. Langer plays an important role in it. This is important because already Stern saw a connection to the arts and thus referred to Langer. The common starting point of us is as Stern has worked out and can be confirmed by my research in the arts, as I put forward in a first article in 2011 (Sauer 2011, Entwicklungspsychologie / Neurowissenschaft und Kunstgeschichte - Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion von Form als Grundlage von Wahrnehmungs- und Gestaltungsprinzipien: ejournal.net, 1—10), that at the early stage of human being, their experiences, following Stern, are based on, “abstract representations that are not sights and sounds and touches and nameable objects but rather shapes, intensities and temporal patterns, the more global qualities of experience” [Stern 1985, 47-68, 51]. It wasn't until 2022, we, that's me, Giuseppe and Giada, design students, and Petra Leutner, who is responsible in research at the Fresenius University of Applied Science in Hamburg, realized our first joint project on the topic of affective perception and design. Next month, in September, we will present the results in the keynote speech at the Interdisciplinary and International Conference of the German Society of Semiotics at the Technical University in Landau.

The second point concerns Langer's philosophic background. It is of central interest to me that she also pursued ideas on process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and on the cultural anthropological philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, with whom she maintained a personal exchange. In 2014, I published the first article on this context by asking about the functional relevance of a non-discursive concept of form in Cassirer, Langer and Krois and already included Whitehead [Sauer 2014, Ästhetik und Pragmatismus. Zur funktionalen Relevanz einer nicht-diskursiven Formauffassung bei Cassirer, Langer und Krois, in: IMAGE 20: 49—69.]. In addition, it was Cassirer who was already in exchange with the development psychologist Heinz Werner in Hamburg, who, before emigrating in 1933 to the USA, not only shared a room with Cassirer, but also anthropological ideas. It was Werner who ultimately influenced Stern's thesis of human communication through abstract formal aspects.

Third and finally, and this is important for the concept of Vitality Semiotics, and thus for any consideration of Langer, there are the arts. This is important because I began my research career as an art historian in 1998, with a PhD thesis in Basel, Switzeland, on the Genesis of Abstraction through the analysis of Cézanne, Van Gogh and Monet. Central to this was the observation that perception of abstract paintings is based on the feeling of impulses or the energetic potential of abstract formal aspects. In terms of form, they have a rhythmic, space-forming and body-forming potential, and in terms of content a unifying and meaning-forming potential. And thirdly, in terms of evaluation processes, a characterizing and value-forming power (Sauer 1998, 131-156). These results are central to a statement about the conditio humana. With my commitment to combine such opposing positions as formal aesthetics and historiographically oriented iconology, which culminated in the concept of Vitality Semiotics, I already described Langer's act theory without knowing of it.

“What is, according to you, Langer’s most influential idea?”

To the second question, what is according to Langer, to you, Langer's most influential idea? From my point of view, it is definitely Langer's act theory, which I have already mentioned. It is presented by her in her first and second volume of Mind from 1967 and '72. With both, she precisely introduced the functioning of feelings as embodied acts with agency, which today can be confirmed as a core mechanism of the human condition. Langer's starting point is the fact that even the simplest interaction comparable to artistic acts are characterized by rhythms and the dialectical exchange of energies, forms and qualities, and thus by non-discursive aspects. Accordingly, it is the structure of the acts that can be considered form-giving. After an initial starting phase, an impulse of energy change, an increase in complexity takes place, which is guided by, as she described, tensions and resolutions, up to a turning point and a concluding phase. It is this sequence of events or processes, which can be described as articulated, that form its own pattern. In this respect, the act can be regarded as a functional unit of the living form, which is vital to plants and animals as well as humans (Langer, Mind I, 272-299, 292). Furthermore, it is vital to perception in general and to art in particular. Finally, when the question of motivation is raised, the event of acts themselves can be explained as an “effect of decision” (ibid., 257-306, esp. 275-299). The acts become actors, she explained (ibid, 314). Their “decisions”, the decisions of acts, are particularly interesting because they are made on a formal level and have far-reaching consequences. Their decisions influence others. In sum, they lead to processes of involvement and individuation. This structure, according to Langer, is the agent's body (ibid., 307-359, 329). To summarize, Langer's concept of the act is not only a vital process of concrete meaning-making in epistemological terms, but also leads to conscious decisions and volitional actions that form the basis for social structure in communicative terms (Langer, Mind 2, 103-140; see 137-138, 265-316, see 301-312).

Now to the last point, with a few brief notes.

“What do you do with Langer’s thought?”

For me, it is central to show that Lange's act theory is central to an expanded view beyond epistemology to a theory of communicative, and thus socially and culturally relevant action. In line with other research, her act theory can be presented as the new understanding of the conditio humana. In this sense, her approach is a central component of Vitality Semiotics in biological, philosophical and artistic terms. As before, I will continue integrating her aspects in all three fields of my research.

Thank you for your attention