Langer's Theory of Image and Gestalt and Her “Reception” among Philosophers

Abstract It is fortunate that in the present we have seen a resurgence of interest in the philosophy of Susanne Langer, with the founding of an interdisciplinary International Langer Circle, two major conferences and a number of small conferences held, and others, big and small, being planned. Her appeal across disciplines has carried process thought far from the narrow practices of academic philosophers. Also, with a major new study out by Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin, a Bloomsbury Handbook dedicated to Langer, and several special issues of journals devoted to her thought, it is time for the process community to look at Langer again, or really, for almost the first time, since most process philosophers have not studied Langer at all. This essay aims to accomplish two things: First I will give a close reading of one of Langer's most important ideas about “form.” The idea of “Gestalt” in Langer is original and difficult. I will explain it and show how it fits in her wider philosophy, clarifying some issues she did not make sufficiently explicit. Second, I will argue that this idea, and a few of its companion ideas about form (especially logical form), could not be assimilated or even comprehended by the dominant ontologies of her time—analytic-realist and pragmatist. (Continental philosophers, in the United States and Europe, ignored Langer.) Her ideas simply did not fit with the fashions and, more importantly, the ontological presuppositions of her peers. They do fit better with our current assumptions, in the broad reaches of intellectual culture, beyond the narrow boundaries academic philosophy imposes on itself. The reason for a resurgence of interest has to do with her treatment of images, among other now fashionable topics.