From Metaphysics to Art and Back: The Relevance of Susan K.

Langer’s
Philosophy for Process Metaphysics

Rolf Lachmann

A superficial evaluation of the relevance for one another of Alfred North Whitehead’s and
Susanne K. Langer’s philosophies could go like this: whereas Whitehead’s philosophy centers
around the development of a metaphysical system, Langer’s philosophy centers around a
philosophy of mind. Metaphysics and philosophy of mind are separate philosophical
disciplines. Therefore, the question whether they relate to one another does not seem to be
very promising.

But such a position would be in sharp contradiction to Whitehead’s and Langer’s

understanding of the nature of philosophy, and it is possible to sketch a totally different
picture of their projects. According to Whitehead, metaphysics must include an
interpretation of the whole range of human experience and human knowledge. Therefore,
Whitehead’s philosophy of organism includes a philosophy of mind. Whitehead’s
philosophy of mind, particularly his theory of symbolism, influenced Langer’s philosophy of
mind. Moreover, in later life Langer saw the decisive task of her work on the human mind
in the attempt to develop a theory of the “life of the mind” which she constructed in terms
of a process philosophical framework. Finally, Langer always maintained the inevitability of
metaphysics. Looked upon in this way, Whitehead’s and Langer’s philosophies stand in a
close systematic relationship.

As usual, such simplifying sketches have both an aspect of truth and of falsehood. In the
following I intend to show how Langer’s theory of symbolism, particularly her theory of
presentational symboliza-tion, can be understood as an application of one of the central
positions of Whitehead’s metaphysics. Because of the particular assumptions of Langer’s
theory of symbolism, her concept of presentational symbolization, and particularly of the art
symbol, served as the starting point for her development of a theory of life. This theory has
strong parallels to Whitehead’s philosophy of organism and is an important contribution to
“process thought.” However, my ultimate goal is to assess whether Langer’s philosophy can
also be regarded as a contribution to “process metaphysics.” For this I must first sketch
Whitehead’s understanding of the nature of metaphysics.
Whitehead’s Concept of Metaphysics

Whitehead saw the goal of his philosophy, which he developed from the beginning of his
American period in 1924, in the development of a metaphysical system. Metaphysics is an
attempt to attain the deepest and most comprehensive understanding of the nature of being.
Understanding the ultimate nature of being is the utmost and most ambitious philosophical
goal. One reason for this is that a metaphysical system, as Whitehead understands it, has to
base its interpretations on the most basic experiences of, and insights into, the nature of
reality as they are articulated for example in religious language. Over and above that, a
metaphysical system must be able to interpret all forms of knowledge as well as our everyday
life experiences. “Speculative Philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical,
necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be
interpreted” (PR 3). The necessity of attaining an all-encompassing interpretation of
everything that is accessible to the human mind makes the construction of a metaphysical
system very difficult. The goal of providing an interpretation of the whole range of our
experience can be reached only by means of a sufficiently abstract conceptual scheme.
Whitehead draws attention to the necessity of an abstract theory as essential for metaphysics.
“By ‘metaphysics’ I mean the science which seeks to discover the general ideas which are
indispensably relevant to the analysis of everything that happens” (RM 72). In another
passage Whitehead stresses the same idea but also indicates the difficulty of explicating
metaphysical truths. “Metaphysical categories are not dogmatic statements of the obvious;
they are tentative formulations of the ultimate generalities” (PR 8).

Therefore, the construction of a metaphysical system cannot proceed as a mere integration

of available knowledge. Our everyday life knowledge is related to the particular
circumstances and necessities of our ordinary pursuits. Since metaphysical statements refer
just to those characteristics which are exemplified in everything that happens, they are widely
neglected by the basic principle of our perception: the “method of difference” (PR 4).
Because of their universal exemplification, metaphysical characteristics possess some kind of
irrelevance for practical purposes. Therefore, metaphysical characteristics are the outcome
of a difficult effort of articulation and expression. This method can be complemented by
the method of “imaginative generalization” (PR 5). Starting from a particular field of
observation the evinced characteristics may be capable of generalization for the construction
of a metaphysical system.
Ordinary language basically fulfills practical tasks. Therefore, it is not suitable for the
construction of a metaphysical theory. On the other hand, philosophical concepts are
misleading because of their connotations and misleading associations due to their previous
theoretical usages. Therefore, in developing a new theory there is always a question whether
the available concepts are sufficient for the task or whether one has to create new concepts
with new meanings. The particular kind of knowledge at which metaphysics aims forces us
to recognize the unsuitability of ordinary language, and the available philosophical concepts
are laden already with theoretical connotations. Hence, the construction of a metaphysical
system demands an analysis and criticism of meanings: “‘rational metaphysics’ (...) criticizes
meanings, and endeavours to express the most general concepts adequate for the all-inclusive
universe” (RM 71). Metaphysics and the criticism and construction of meanings are tightly
interwoven.

The difficulties for the realization of such a metaphysical system are impressive. However,
Whitehead even adds another aspect. The final philosophical goal is the development of an
“explanatory metaphysics” (FR 30). Accordingly, philosophy has not fulfilled its overall task
by the mere explication and systematization of the most general characteristics of all being.
Over and above that, philosophy has to discover the intrinsic nature, the ultimate causes and
directions of all being and becoming. The realization of this aim necessitates a consideration
of the subjective, value-laden, and teleological nature of human consciousness as a clue to
the inner nature of being. The feasibility of such a project is the essence of what Whitehead
calls philosophical “rationalism.” The basic question of philosophy is understood fully only
when it is understood as a question concerning the explanatory principles. “Philosophers are
rationalists. They are seeking to go behind stubborn and irreducible facts: they wish to
explain in the light of universal principles the mutual reference between the various details
entering into the flux of things” (SMW 142). It is this much more penetrating aim which
Whitehead designates by the concept of “explanatory metaphysics” and gives the full
meaning to the sentence: “The final problem is to conceive a complete [παντεληζ] fact” (AI
158). An explanatory metaphysics is reached through the development of an abstract
conceptual scheme which also interprets the internal, subjective and value-oriented nature of
being. It demands an adequate conception of the “complete” nature of “being” and
“becoming.”

The basic idea in Whitehead’s answer to this metaphysical question is that being is essentially
relational. Thereby he rejects one of the leading ideas of modern natural philosophy; namely,
the assumption of a passive and isolated substance which needs nothing but itself in order
to exist. The assumption of a substantial existence is supported by our language and everyday
life experience. In particular, ordinary language demands, through its syntax, that every
activity be done by an actor and that every process presupposes an enduring substrate.
Thereby we are led to believe that we live in a world of things which do not change and
whose being is not affected by their surroundings. According to this belief, relations are
always “external relations.” They are not essential to individual being. In the contexts of our
everyday life, this belief proves to be more or less adequate. However, as a basic position
regarding the nature of being it is wrong. Against the deep-seated conviction that the
relations of a particular thing are external to its being, Whitehead tries to prove that all
relations are internal to its being; they constitute its very essence. Every being is constituted
by its relations to other beings in its individual nature. This is the core of Whitehead’s
criticism of the notion of passive and isolated substances which he rejects as an
understanding of “simple location.” Enduring things are not uniform, undifferentiated and
persisting realities but have to be conceived of as vast societies of processes in which defining
characteristics are permanently reproduced. The whole range of being, down to subatomic
events, is to be understood as the processual and rhythmic constitution of individuals. The
general structure of the processual units, the “actual entities,” is Whitehead’s central topic.

Langer’s Theory of Presentational Symbolism

In order to understand Langer’s evaluation of Whitehead’s development of his metaphysical

system since 1924, one has to consider that Langer’s philosophical orientation was moulded
by her studies in symbolic logic. However, through her teacher Henry M. Sheffer, Langer
had been introduced to Josiah Royce’s very broad understanding of logic and thought it was
a promising approach. The center of this approach is the concept of “form”: “Logic is the
science of forms as such, the study of patterns” (PP 83). Langer saw the fecundity of this
broad conception of logic in the fact that it not only promised to account for the whole range
of human knowledge and understanding as realized in language, science, and mathematics,
but that it also implied a more encompassing theory of the human mind. “Logic” makes it
possible to see other forms of symbolization such as art, myth, and ritual as genuine forms
of human understanding. Meaning, according to Langer, is constituted by the recognition of
forms and the use of some forms for the representation of other formal aspects. One can
trace back to the very beginning of her philosophical work Langer’s expectation and hope
that this broad conception of logic could be the starting point for a fruitful and penetrating
interpretation of the whole range of human existence (including myth, ritual, dream, morality,
and psychological and social phenomena).
The center of her interest, however, was art. Langer aimed to show that art is essentially a
particular form of understanding and she tried to discover the “logic” of its symbolical
nature. Her first interpretation of art as a particular form of symbolization (found in The
Practice of Philosophy) is based on a general theory of meaning, which Langer claimed to be
implicit in Whitehead’s Symbolism and in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-philoso-
phicus. Her revised and very influential theory of symbolism in Philosophy in a New Key is
characterized by a fundamental shift: the concepts of symbol, meaning, and form remain
central, but her new theory is no longer based exclusively on the paradigm of symbolic logic.
Besides the logical and discursive mode, there is another fundamentally different mode of
symbolization. At the center of her new theory is the distinction between the “discursive”
and “presentational symbolization.”

Her new theory of symbolization can also be understood as the application of a fundamental
idea of Whitehead’s metaphysics. Whitehead’s metaphysical position of the relational
constitution of being is the basis of Langer’s concept of the presentational symbol. This can
be shown by a brief sketch of her leading ideas.

According to Langer, discursive symbolization proceeds essentially by the arrangement of

stable and context-invariant meanings (words) in order to articulate a new meaning
(sentence). The stability and definiteness of meaning is based on conventional agreements
and definitions1. By means of definitions the meaning of a symbol becomes fixed in various
usages in different contexts. The individual context of such a symbol is “external” to its
meaning. The semantic elements function as a set of variable and manageable but stable
“bricks.” Therefore, the understanding of a composed symbol can proceed in a step by step
manner. For this reason and because of the particular subject-predicate structure of linguistic
syntax, such symbolizations lead us to think in terms of self-identical objects. “Discursive
thinking, once started, runs in its own loosely syllogistic pattern from one proposition to
another, actually or only potentially worded, but with prepared conception always at hand.
Where it seizes on any material — sensations, memories, fantasies, reflections — it puts its
seal of fixity, categorial divisions, oppositions, exclusions, on every emerging idea, and
automatically makes entities out of any elements that will take the stamp of denotative
words” (Mind I 155).

1
It is important to consider that discursive symbolization is not the same as language. Moreover, this is
not a theory of the origin of language. Ordinary language is a mixture of discursive and presentational
forms of symbolization. Langer’s example for discursive symbolization is ideal language as it is striven for
in the natural sciences or in artificial symbol systems.
However, there is another type of symbols which Langer calls “presentational symbols,” and
which function according to other principles. First of all and most important is the fact that
presentational symbols are not based on a vocabulary of defined symbols with stable
meanings. The meaning of a picture, for example, is not understood successively by noticing
the meanings of all its symbolic elements. It is understood only by grasping the whole
articulation at once. The elements of a picture do not have their meanings fixed
independently of the relations in which they stand towards other elements. What they mean
depends upon their position in a particular setting. Likewise, to use a different example, the
meaning of a piece of music can be understood only through perceiving the whole concrete
arrangements and interactions of its melodic and tonal elements. One tone in itself is almost
meaningless. The individual position of any tone modifies the meaning of the whole musical
expressiveness. Hence, the elements of the structure constitute the structure and are at the
same time constituted by the relational pattern. Presentational symbols operate with elements
which have no context-invariant and stable meaning. Since the individual elements do not
have in abstraction of their position any constant meaning, the meaning of the elements
cannot be known or learned in advance. Therefore, an understanding of presentational
symbols cannot proceed in successive steps but presupposes a synoptic grasp of the whole
relational individuality.2

The meanings of all other symbolic elements that compose a larger, articulate symbol are
understood only through the meaning of the whole, through their relations within the total
structure. Their very functioning as symbols depends on the fact that they are involved in a
simultaneous, integral presentation. (PNK 97)

Presentational symbols are therefore always singular symbols. They do not lead to the
development of a symbol system (Mind I 84), and allow no definition, translation, or
syntactically guided arrangement (PNK 94).

The basic idea of the difference between presentational and discursive symbolization is now
clear. Whereas discursive symbolization works with stable and externally related elements
that provide thinking with “substantial elements” and facilitate a “mechanistic arrangement”
of “bricks of meaning”, presentational symbolization is highly context-sensitive and the
outcome of a dynamic interaction of individual elements. At a first glance, the unhandiness
and singularity of the presentational symbols seem to be a major disadvantage of this kind
of symbolization. However, they are particularly apt for the symbolic expression of certain
kinds of experience which can be expressed only very inadequately in discursive symbols.
Because of their relational essence, presentational symbols can adequately objectify
phenomena which have an analogous nature: the structures, processes, and dynamics of our
inner life and feeling.

In order to understand this position one has to consider another assumption. According to
Langer, the basic process of all human thinking and conception is an abstraction of forms
and a recognition of formal analogies:

The power of understanding symbols, i.e. of regarding every-thing about a sense-datum as

irrelevant except a certain form that it embodies, is the most characteristic mental trait of
man-kind. It issues in an unconscious, spontaneous process of abstrac-tion, which goes on
all the time in the human mind: a process of recognizing the concept in any configuration
given to experience, and forming a conception accord-ingly. That is the real sense of
Aristotle’s definition of man as “the rational animal.” (PNK 72)

This ability and proneness to abstracting forms begins with human perception and extends
into all other and higher forms of human mental functionings. The recognition of analogies
is the essential principle of all symbolization. Langer uses the concept “intuition” for this
basic human ability.

Intuition is, I think, the fundamental intellectual activity, which produces logical or
semantical understand-ing. It comprises all acts of insight or recognition of formal
properties, of relations, of significance, and of abstraction and exemplification.” (PA 66)

This principle makes it clear why Langer regards presentational symbols as apt means for the
symbolic expression of dynamic and interactively constituted phenomena. Because of their
semantical nature—the relational constitution of their meaning—these symbols have formal
characteristics which are also typical for the morphology of our inner life and feeling. On
the basis of this premise, Langer develops an interpretation of the meaning of musical
symbols in Philosophy in a New Key and extends it, with some minor revisions, in Feeling
and Form, to a comprehensive philosophy of art.

As may be clear by now, Langer’s distinction between discursive and presentational

symbolization can be understood as an application of Whitehead’s basic metaphysical
position in the context of a theory of symbols. In contrast with discursive symboliza-tion
which proceeds as a “mechanistic-like” articulation of meaning with the help of stable
meanings, there is another mode of symbolization which proceeds as an “organismic-like”
articulation of meaning on the basis of highly context-sensitive elements. The central idea
of presentational symbolization—the relationally constituted nature of meaning—is the
central idea of Whitehead’s organismic philosophy of being as developed in his concept of
actual entity.

There is another aspect of Langer’s philosophy of art that can be introduced by referring to
Whitehead’s Symbolism.3 Whitehead introduces in Symbolism the distinction between two
basic modes of experience Which he calls perception in the mode of “causal efficacy” and
perception in the mode of “presentational immediacy.” The former refers to our direct
feeling of the efficacious environment acting upon us. This feeling is vague but very massive
and of high emotional importance. Thereby we directly feel the existential relevance of our
environment upon our being. Perception in the mode of presentational immediacy, on the
other hand, consists of trivial but clear and distinct perceptions of our sense-organs which
allow a very differentiated reference to particular aspects of our surroundings. In our
everyday life we use the distinct but trivial perceptions as clues for the anticipation of the
massive forces that surround us.

On the basis of this distinction, Langer’s position can be reconstructed in the following way:
although in our everyday life we make use of perceptions in their function as signals in order
to cope with practical options and necessities, the real use of our perceptions as symbols
begins at the point where we transcend the practical attitude. When this takes place the
bonds between perceptions in the mode of presentational immediacy and causal efficacy are
dissolved. We are confronted with distinct perceptions without any practical function. This
renders them meaningless (in terms of practical signification). But these perceptions are now
open for the acquisition of new meaning-relations on the basis of their formal analogy with
other experiences. These nonpractlcal experiences are objectified in such free perceptions in
the mode of presentational immediacy. The possibility of this functional shift implies an
elementary understanding of art:

The function of artistic belief is not “make-believe,” as many philoso-phers and

psychologists assume, but the very opposite, disengage-ment from belief—the contempla-
tion of sensory qualities without their usual meanings of “Here’s that chair,” “That’s my
telephone,” . . . The knowledge that what is before us has no practical significance in the
world is what enables us to give attention to its appearance as such. Everything has an aspect
of appearance as well as of causal importance. (FF 49)

Works of art are the result of the voluntary manipulation of our distinct perceptions (tones,
colours, patterns), free of all practical reference, aiming at the articulation and objectification
(on the basis of formal analogies) of those ephemeral forms of experience which, because of
their dynamic nature, resist any adequate articulation in discursive symbolization. This
abstraction from all practical reference permits our distinct perceptions to become symbols
for particular aspects of our experience.

Art as a Heuristic of Living Processes

The publication of Feeling and Form marked a major turning point in Langer’s philosophical
work. Despite her wide success, Langer no longer confined her studies to philosophy of art
and the nature of symbolization but began to extend her work into new directions. Her
perception of mainstream behavior-ism and the resulting sterility of psychological research
led her to focus on a particular implication of her position, something that promised to be a
fruitful starting point for the development of a new scientific approach to the human mind.
The relevance of Langer’s philosophy of art stemmed from the fact that behaviorism
prohibited any reference to the subjectivity of persons and demanded a restriction of all
scientific research to the objective aspects of behavioral reaction. In her philosophy of art,
Langer saw the possibility of referring to our subjective life without thereby falling back into
introspectionism. Art symbols are objectifications of our subjectivity which open the way to
a more comprehensive study of psychological and mental phenomena. Moreover, a
systematic study of works of art can help us to construct a conceptual scheme which proves
to be adequate for the whole range of subjective life. This may offer a fruitful starting point
for scientific perspectives. The main reason for this expectation has already been mentioned:
the thesis that a symbolic relation is based upon the recognition of an analogy of form
between the symbol and the symbolized phenomenon. In regard to art this means that there
is an analogy of form between the work of art and the forms of our “‘inner life’—physical
or mental” (PNK 228).

In this sense, works of art have a heuristic relevance for problems of biology and psychology.
Langer remarks already in Feeling and Form: “There are many psychological questions, too,
that naturally arise, some of which might lead right to the heart of anthropology and even
biology. Such issues I shall reserve for a subsequent work” (FF 370). According to Langer,
the heuristic relevance is supported by the fact that works of art objectify not only our
morphology of feeling but of “felt life.” In order to be able to symbolize patterns of feeling,
works of art first have to construct a living matrix, out of which particular articulated
structures emerge. Therefore, works of art must achieve the semblance of “depth,”
“growth,” “dynamic going on,” “complexity,” “unity” and “individuality.” Works of art
objectify not only forms of feeling but also basic underlying characteristics of all feeling:
“many aspects of life that never rise to feeling may appear in the art symbol” (Mind I 199).

Reaching this point, the depicted strands of argumentation mark a circle. Beginning with
Whitehead’s basic position of an organismic constitution of being, the first step is Langer’s
application of this idea in her theory of presentational symbolization. Since symbolization
presupposes a formal analogy between the symbol and the symbolized, one can make the
second step as far as the particular nature of artistic symbolization is concerned:
organismically constituted works of art can serve as a heuristic for the conceptualization of
the organismic nature of “felt life.” However, this argumentation does not completely come
back to its starting point, since Langer does not aim at a metaphyssical system but regards
her position as starting point for the scientific understanding of the human mind. Whether
this final step back to metaphysics is a conclusion prepared for in Langer’s philosophy
remains to be seen.

Langer’s “Metaphysics of Life”

Langer’s Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling is a contribution to the foundation of the

sciences and to the understanding of the whole compass of human phenomena. In the
“Introduction,” Langer develops a sharp criticism of contemporary psychology and the social
sciences which have been misguided by Logical Empiricism’s physicalistic and objectivistic
methodology. Against these methodological restric-tions, she insists on the necessity of
beginning scientific research with a systematic study of the phenomena in question, in order
to develop concepts which prove to be adequate. The natural sciences, too, did not begin
by gathering data but with the development of basic concepts by which the data could be
brought into systematic relations. In the same vein, scientific research into the human mind
and human culture has to begin with the construction of working concepts by which the
phenomena can be brought into systematic relations, which organize the data in new ways
and allow the formulation of interesting hypotheses.

Langer bases her study of the phenomena of human mental life on structures of works of
art. Indeed, we all have a direct knowledge about the structures of our inner life. However,
this direct acquaintance is not explicit knowledge. The most adequate knowledge of the
forms of feeling is objectified in works of art. Although these objectifications do not
compose a systematic and integrated understanding, a study of their structures and means of
composition can be the basis for the development of a conceptual scheme for the
understanding of the forms of feeling and even their underlying processes. The validity of
this heuristic of art is proven in Part II of Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, which also
exposes the premises of Langer’s theory of symbolism. Almost all of the concepts and
principles which Langer introduces later in connection with biological results, are first
derived from her analysis of works of art. After her heuristic study of art in Part II Langer
makes almost no further reference to works of art. In the succeeding parts of the book, art
remains in the “philosophical background” (Mind I 257).

Langer’s aim to develop a biologically based conceptual scheme, “adequate to the greatness
of the reality it is supposed to make comprehensible” (Mind I xvii), is centered around the
concept of “act.” Acts are spatio-temporal processes. They always emerge in a stream of
other acts and give rise to new ones. In this role, they are the basic elements of self-
maintaining and self-reproducing systems which are essential characteristics of all life. Acts
have a beginning and an end. They are motivated through an “impulse,” undergo an
“acceleration,” and reach a climax at which the act enters into its “consummation.” The
final phase is the “conclusion” or “cadence.” The indivisible wholeness of an act rests on
the fact that its initial phase is the building up of a store of energy which has to be spent by
the act. Acts effect a sometimes minor, but always definite, change in the whole stream of
acts out of which arise new acts. The phenomenon of life is thus understood to consist of
interactions and concatenations of myriad acts which, by integration into super-acts, build
up all organic functions and behavioral actions. Acts can be expanded or contracted and
even be reduced to a static electro-chemical pattern. In such a state they can persist for long
periods without actualization of their impulse. The genetic code is nothing but a set of such
“frozen” acts which enter their actualization when their environmental conditions become
supportive.

Langer puts great emphasis on a detailed definition of the act concept, always proving its
aspects both by reference to the phenomena of life and to the concepts and results of biology.
She introduces a number of further concepts which specify the act concept (action, activity,
pression, motivation, impulse, facilitation, etc.). Thereby a differentiated conceptual scheme
is introduced which is able to interpret and reinterpret the phenomenon of life and explicate
its overall structure.

In addition, Langer refers to a number of “principles” of life. Principles do not characterize

single acts but general tendencies of the act stream. The basic principles are the principles of
individuation and involvement which refer to the tendencies of differentiation and separation
and to the tendencies of integration and unification. However, evolutionary processes are
never dominated by only one of these principles. They always show a complex dialectic of
both developmental aspects. In addition to these basic principles, there are a number of
other principles by which Langer is able to interpret important features of living processes
and relate them to the acts.

This brief sketch of Langer’s conceptual scheme may be sufficient to prove a general point:
the act concept and the additional concepts and principles which clarify the act concept are
not introduced in order to replace the particular concepts of biological research. Their task
is to be more abstract in order to express the general structural characteristics of all living
phenomena. Langer’s conceptual scheme is an explication of the general structure of all
living phenomena. Hence, her theory can be called a “metaphysics of life.”

As the term “metaphysics of life” indicates, Langer’s theory of act shows in a number of
ways a great affinity to Whitehead’s conception of metaphysics and the content of his
organicism. First and foremost, there is a parallel aim of Langer’s theory of act and
Whitehead’s metaphysics in so far as both theories are directed to the explication and
definition of a conceptual scheme adequate for a whole range of being. The decisive
difference is that Langer does not aim at an explication of the basic structure of all being.
This would lead to a metaphysical system in the strict sense. Langer restricts her theory to
the sphere of life. As far as the content of their theories is concerned, there is an obvious
parallel between the concept of the act and the concept of the actual entity. Both concepts
refer to processual units and are characterized according to their phases and their internal as
well as external relations. Moreover, act and actual entity play a central role in both theories,
as Whitehead expressed by the “ontological principle.” However, since Langer aims at a
scientific framework, the concept of act is freed from various functions and interpre-tations
which the actual entity has to fulfill because of its metaphysically central position.

Langer’s Concept Of Metaphysics

In the preceding sections it has been shown that Langer’s thought marks a circle: the starting
point as well as the result comprise an organismic model which is mediated by her theories
of symbolism and art. However, the organismic theory which serves as her starting point
(Whitehead’s philosophy of organism) has a totally different philosophical status than the
organismic model which she develops. The circle is therefore complete in terms of its
content but not in terms of its philosophical meaning. Is it possible to make this move to a
metaphysical system in Langer’s philosophy?

At this point it is interesting to consider that Langer never criticized metaphysics. Quite the
contrary, she always regarded metaphysics as an essential and even indispensable
philosophical endeavor. Beginning with her The Practice of Philosophy and up to her final
work, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, Langer always maintained that metaphysics,
understood in a proper sense, is the ultimate and essential goal of philosophy. This may be
shown in more detail.

Langer’s understanding of the nature and aim of philosophy in The Practice of Philosophy
bears a close resemblance to Whitehead’s understanding. In her critical explication and
discussion of various contemporary concepts of philosophy, she comes to the conclusion
that the proper goal of philosophy lies in a “synoptic” view of the whole world. Langer finds
a similar view in the following remark by Bernard Bosanquet:

The essence of philosophy lies in the connected vision of the totality of things, maintaining
in every point the subordination of every element and factor to every other element and
factor as conditioned by the totality . . . . It includes the whole spectacle of life. And nothing
can be affirmed as true in philosophy which does not sustain itself in a thinking process to
which the whole of experience is contributory. (PP 15)

The resulting question is, then, how such a synoptic view can be reached. In answering this
question, Langer formulates a thesis which is decisive for her whole philosophical work:
philosophy has the same task as any other “rational science”—the “pursuit of meaning” (PP
21)—the critical examination and logical analysis of concepts. “Pursuit of meaning,”
however, is more than just an analysis of concepts and conceptual relations. Very often,
phenomena have been conceptualized in an inadequate way. Here, misconceptions are only
enlarged through mere analysis. Analysis does not offer any new solutions or conceptual
perspectives. Therefore, a purely analytic understanding of philosophy is insufficient. It has
to be complemented by the task of conceptual invention and construction. According to
Langer, the major part of philosophy is the construction of new concepts with new
implications. This philosophical goal is fully realized in a metaphysical theory:

A metaphysical system, like a logical system, is an attempt to see all its propositions as
implications of a few fundamental, clearly determined notions. Just as the rational sciences
deduce new explicit knowledge from a handful of carefully chosen, accepted premises, so
metaphysics tries to comprehend all the working notions of science and of common life, as
implications of a few very general tenets. (PP 32)

Here, Langer means by “implications” both the indication of necessary connections with
other concepts as well as the “explication” of the new perspectives which result from a new
conceptual scheme by virtue of its power of reinterpretation. Both of the central
characteristics of Langer’s understanding of the ultimate aim of philosophy—(1) that
metaphysics should be synoptic and (2) that it must engage in concept construction—are
very close to Whitehead’s understanding of philosophy.

In succeeding expositions, Langer revised this understanding of philosophy showing her

strong orientation towards logic. She later de-emphasized the importance of the logical
connections to other concepts as essential for conceptual analysis. Nevertheless, she insisted
on the tasks of conceptual analysis and conceptual construction as essential for philosophy
and metaphysics. In Philosophy in a New Key she writes: “metaphysics is, like every
philosophical pursuit, a study of meanings” (PNK 85). And again in Feeling and Form: “The
business of philosophy is to unravel and organize concepts, to give definite and satisfactory
meanings to the terms we use in talking about any subject (in this case art); it is, as Charles
Peirce said, ‘to make our ideas clear’” (FF vii).

In later publications, Langer refers frequently to Whitehead’s concept of metaphysics as the

search for the most general ideas relevant to all being. Against the objections of positivistic
thinkers Langer maintains:

. . . both Lord Russell and Mr. Ryle hold with the positivists and most behaviorists that
metaphysical issues should be left alone. The general conviction of those schools is that
metaphysical ideas are irrelevant to science, since they apply to the universe as a whole, about
which nothing can be really known. But the truth is, I think, that all scientific analyses when
pursued far enough go down to implicit metaphysical propositions, which need not be about
the universe as a whole, but about the nature of things in it. Whitehead once defined
metaphysics as “the most general statements we can make about reality.” Whether we make
them or not, their content is assumed in less general assertions, because they embody our
basic concepts; and if these do not fit whatever aspects or items of reality we are talking
about, we raise insoluble problems, as in unpurified psychological theory. (PS 6-1)

In this sense, metaphysical notions underlie also our sober formulations of facts: “. . .
metaphysical . . . in its perfectly respectable sense of dealing with the basic assumptions
implicit in our formulation of ‘facts’” (Mind I, 316).4 At the same time Langer emphasizes
the creative nature of metaphysical reflection:

Yet metaphysics is the mainstay of philosophy. Logic is merely a tool; ethics and aesthetics
and the “social sciences” are derivatives from a more general interpretation of experience.
This general interpretation is exactly what we mean by metaphysics. To say that we have
outgrown the need of metaphysics is to say that we have no further need of any
interpretation—and that is a momentous statement. It means that we are satisfied either
with the face values of things or with the unconscious interpretations of common sense, and
are prepared to go on without philosophy. (EE 772)

In the same vein Langer remarks at the end of the Introduction to Mind: An Essay on Human
Feeling, confronting the positivists:

But I do not reject or even deprecate metaphysics; only it seems to me to be the natural end,
not the beginning, of philosophical work. A. N. Whitehead once defined metaphysical
statements as “the most general statements we can make about reality.” Such state-ments,
to be valid, must be built up by processes of generalization of systematic knowledge, not
made on a basis of preconceived generality; and being attained stepwise, they are not likely
to be ultimate, but only to be our furthest reaches of thought. Whether this essay attains to
any such synoptic view—or even glimpses of truly metaphysical value—will have to be
judged at its conclusion. (Mind I xxii)5

This list of passages suffices to prove Langer’s understanding and lifelong high valuation of
metaphysics as the ultimate goal of philosophy.

Langer’s primary aim in Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling was not the construction of a
metaphysical system, although by reason of the above quoted passage, she was not totally
guiltless of this misunderstanding. So Herbert Read, in a book review, understood Langer
to be more ambitious: “But her final purpose, which begins with the publication of the
present volume, is metaphysical: she has the ambition to present a new philosophical
system.”6 Langer felt totally misunderstood and wrote to Read: “what in the world gave you
the impression I was offering a new system of philosophy? The reader, I am afraid, will
expect to find a metaphysical system based on aesthetics; . . . my aim is to construct a
conceptual framework for all biological thinking, from biochemistry to neuro-psychology.”7
In her answer to Read’s response she continued: “I . . . objected only because you seemed to
be ascribing too much to me. A new system of philosophy implies something applicable to
inorganic as well as organic matter, something more comprehensive than I had in mind.”8
It is not Langer’s primary aim in Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling to offer a metaphysical
system, but one can question whether it implies novel perspectives for process metaphysics.
This is possible due to (1) Langer’s process-philosophical approach and (2) her affirmation
of metaphysics as the ultimate goal of philosophy. Can we regard the theory of act as a
contribution to process metaphysics?

Imaginative Generalization and the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization

This question can be answered in various ways. On the one hand, whether in accordance
with Langer’s own position or not, it seems to be a very plausible and fruitful approach to
interpret Langer’s theory of life with regard to its value for a process metaphysics. Even if
it is true that Langer explicitly restricted the theory of act to the interpretation of the
structures and dynamics of life, the theory of act could turn out to be valuable also for
inorganic existence and even for all being. In so far as one is willing to see Langer’s theory
of act in this way, the outcome shows great closeness to Whitehead’s metaphysics. However,
Langer’s theory results in more than that. It can also be regarded as the basis for an extension
of Whitehead’s metaphysics since it includes a far more developed conceptualization of the
developmental tendencies of elementary processes. Whitehead restricted almost his whole
attention to the definition of actual entities, thereby neglecting tendencies in the interaction
of actual entities and the resulting developmental directions and dynamics. To be sure, they
are not totally missing in Whitehead’s metaphysics. He speaks of societies—structured,
corpuscular, and noncorpus-cular—and of subservient and regnant nexūs. However, they
are not the focus of his attention and have not been the subject of a comparable
differentiated conceptualization. This is just what Langer’s theory of act does by introducing
various principles of life. The principles of individuation and involvement, and the principles
of rhythm, dialectic, entrainment, implementation, pression, facilitation, reduction and
extension of acts, the principle of tolerance and others can be regarded as complementing
Whitehead’s metaphysics if it can be proven that they are not only relevant characteristics of
living existence.9

It is, however, an open question whether Langer herself would have been willing to take that
step. It is explicitly not her aim to use her theory of act so as to draw a fundamental
distinction between the spheres of living and lifeless being. Her only goal is to explicate a
structure which can be identified as essential for all life. Therefore, Langer does not rule out
the possibility that the theory of act is also applicable to inorganic being. Its validity,
however, has to be shown by a separate investigation which Langer did not have in mind.
She would have demanded that further investigation.

This gives us a clue to another and decisive point. Langer’s understanding of philosophical
work is characterized by a greater methodological discipline and rigor than Whitehead’s. This
concerns various aspects. First, all her theoretical constructions are based on comprehensive
studies of the respective phenomena and their theoretical interpretation, all of which is made
explicit by numerous references. Langer’s philosophy of art as well as her philosophy of mind
show an intimate firsthand knowledge of the problems and literature. Secondly, in
opposition to the widespread assumption that access to our subjectivity needs no
methodological guidance, Langer was aware that our naïve descriptions of our own
subjective life are highly suspicious and easily misguided by common sense and ordinary
language. She accepts the phenomenological position that the philosophy which studies the
study of structures of our inner life has to be guided by method. However, she diverges
from phenomenology by claiming that it is art which, by reason of its peculiar symbolic
structure, can provide an adequate approach to subjectivity.

Langer’s shift of emphasis can be shown by another look at the above quoted passage from
Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling:

But I do not reject or even deprecate metaphysics; only it seems to me to be the natural end,
not the beginning, of philosophical work. A. N. Whitehead once defined metaphysical
statements as “the most general statements we can make about reality.” Such statements, to
be valid, must be built up by processes of generalization of systematic knowledge, not made
on a basis of preconceived generality; and being attained stepwise, they are not likely to be
ultimate, but only to be our furthest reaches of thought. (Mind I xxii)

No doubt, Whitehead would have supported Langer’s concluding remark that there can be
no ultimate metaphysical knowledge. However, the keywords “generalization of systematic
knowledge,” “attained stepwise” and the criticism against a “preconceived generality” can be
read as an allusive comment on Whitehead. Langer’s above-mentioned two positions
demand a careful step by step procedure, which thereby subdues hasty “imaginative
generalization.” Langer never would have written: “In describing the capacities, realized or
unrealized, of an actual occasion, we have, with Locke, tacitly taken human experience as an
example upon which to found the generalized description required for metaphysics” (PR
112). She would have seen in such a procedure a far too hasty generalization of particular
results. Such a quick shift from particular results to sweeping generalizations fall for Langer
under the “fallacy of hasty generalization.”10

This attitude is very obvious in her philosophy of art. After having developed her
interpretation of music as a realm of expressive symbols, she poses the question whether the
given interpretation can be extended to provide a general philosophy of art. Langer’s answer
is:

[W]e should take warning against the fallacy of hasty generalization—of assuming that
through music we are studying all the arts, so that every insight into the nature of music is
immediately applicable to painting, architecture, poetry, dance, and drama; . . . A basic unity
of purpose and even of general method for all the arts is a very inviting hypothesis, and may
well be demonstrable at the end; but as a foregone conclusion, a dogmatic premise, it is
dangerous because it discourages special theories and single-minded, technical study.
General theories should be constructed by generalization from the principles of a special
field, known and understood in full detail. Where no such systematic order exists to serve
as a pattern, a general theory is more likely to consist of vague generalities than of valid
generalizations. (PNK 209-10)

This position is more than a mere stress on methodological discipline. It implies a cautious
attitude in regard to interpretations which are not made sufficiently plausible or validated. In
this respect, Langer obviously held Whitehead’s philosophy to be guilty of too bold and far-
reaching positions. This is evident in a note which Langer wrote in preparation to her Mind:
An Essay on Human Feeling: “It [Whitehead’s philosophy] is in some ways faulty; esp., I
think, in the treatment of feeling as an ingredient in nature instead of a phenomenon. This
ingredient, or element in nature, is mystical; and Process and Reality is a cosmic myth of
biology.11 In this context, it is not Langer’s criticism of Whitehead’s concept of feeling but
her general evaluation of Process and Reality as a “cosmic myth of biology” that is interesting.
It implies that she regarded Whitehead’s metaphysics to be unsystematically developed and
insufficiently proved.

It would be false to see this cautious and disciplined attitude as a criticism of speculative
philosophy. Langer emphasizes the necessity of speculative philosophical interpretation and
sees her work (in regard to a particular range of phenomena) as just such a speculative
attempt. In Part I of Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, she writes: “Any science is likely
to merge ultimately with physics, as chemistry has done, but only in its mature stage; its early
phases have to be its own, and the earliest is that of philosophical imagination and adventure”
(Mind I 52). It seems as if in this sentence one could hear an echo of Whitehead. Langer
develops her concept of act as a speculative conceptual construction. However, she develops
her suggestions and interpretations in close contact with the available scientific data and a
methodologically guided envisagement of the phenomena which she wants to explain. Her
kind of speculative philosophy is of a more disciplined variety.

If this interpretation is correct, it is not surprising that Langer never referred to Whitehead’s
most encompassing definition of metaphysics as “explanatory metaphysics” (FR 30). To be
sure, there is nothing which definitely rules out even such a far-reaching aim from the scope
of Langer’s understanding of philosophy. But Langer’s reservations about “cosmic myths”
and her emphasis on systematically attained knowledge would imply an even greater
carefulness If not hesitation in the construction of such a system.

Conclusion

It can be said that in regard to their actual achievements, Whitehead’s and Langer’s
philosophies aim primarily at different theories. In regard to the potential fruitfulness, there
is a real contribution of Langer’s philosophy to process thought. The most fundamental
difference lies in her emphasis on methodological rigor. Whitehead was strongly inclined
towards speculation and the attempt to attain ultimate insights. Therefore he was ready to
admit that “philosophy is akin to poetry” (MT 49-50). Yet one should not overemphasize
these methodological differences. It is probably more a shift of emphasis. But it is just this
shift of emphasis which perhaps makes Langer’s method more adequate for any further
attempt at the construction of a metaphysical system.

References

DM Susanne K. Langer and Eugene T. Gadol. “The Deepening Mind: A Half-Century

of American Philosophy.” The American Quarterly 2 (1950): 118-32.

EE Susanne K. Langer. “End of an Epoch.” Atlantic Monthly 147 (1931): 772-75.

FF Susanne K. Langer. Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy
in a New Key. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953.
Mind Susanne K. Langer. Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press. Vol. I: 1967, Vol. 2: 1972, Vol. 3: 1982.

PA Susanne K. Langer. Problems of Art: Ten Philosophical Lectures. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1957.

PNK Susanne K. Langer. Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason,
Rite, and Art. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.

PP Susanne K. Langer. The Practice of Philosophy. New York: Henry Holt, 1930.

PS Susanne K. Langer. Philosophical Sketches. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1962.

Notes

2 This does not rule out a temporal order of the elements as is the case with music. The
decisive point is in which way the elements are contributory to the meaning.

3 Langer does not indicate her source of the concept of “presentational” symbolization.
Here, naturally, Whitehead’s concept of “presentational immediacy” comes to mind.
However, another major influence of her thinking, the philosopher Ernst Cassirer, also uses
the distinction between “Präsenz” and “Repräsentation.” See E. Cassirer, Philosophie der
symbolischen Formen I (Darmstadt: Wissenschaft-liche Buchgesellschaft, 1988) 33.

4 See also PNK 201-202 and DM 121: “The ill repute into which metaphysics has fallen is
not so much a deserved censure of the pursuit itself as a protest against old doctrines
associated with its name. To call a question ‘metaphysical’ is currently considered, by many
scholars, tantamount to calling it ‘nonsensical.’ But metaphysics, properly speaking, is simply
the study of basic assumptions, and the metaphysical question is a question of what,
ultimately, we are talking about when we speak of ‘the world,’ or ‘fact,’ or ‘experience.’ There
is as much metaphysics involved in scientific thinking as in theological, as much in radical
empiricism as in idealism, or, for that matter, in mysticism . . . . If, therefore, I refrain from
applying the word metaphysics to good theories about the nature of the world and of our
understanding, that is a concession to fashion; for academic fashion, like social etiquette,
respects the associations of a term rather than its actual significance—a foolish practice, of
which philosophers should not be guilty.”
5 In a foreword to the final and incompleted Part VI, “Mathematics and the Reign of
Science,” Langer writes: “This study of mind should culminate, of course, in a well-
constructed epistemological and possibly even metaphysical theory, at least as firmly founded
on other people’s knowledge and hypotheses as any earlier parts of this essay which have
been written in preparation for such a reflective conclusion” (Mind III 201).

6 H. Read, “Describing the Indescribable,” Saturday Review, 15 July 1967, 32.

7 Langer to Herbert Read, August 4, 1967. In: Susanne K. Langer Papers, Houghton Library,
Harvard University.

8 Langer to Herbert Read, August 16, 1967. In: Susanne K. Langer Papers, Houghton
Library, Harvard University.

9 For some of Langer’s principles there is already a certain basis in Whitehead’s writing. This
seems to me to be particularly the case regarding Langer’s principles of individuation and
involvement. Whitehead makes frequent use of an interdependence of liberty and
compulsion” (AI 56), “routine and understanding” (AI 90), “scholarship and speculation (AI
108), “the rhythmic claims of freedom and discipline” (AE, chapter II), “spirit of change and
the spirit of conservation” (SMW 201), and “order and love (AI 292) as essential conditions
of depth of experience and intensity. Langer’s principles of individuation and involvement
express just this dialectic as phenomenal tendencies of living development without, however,
having Whitehead’s evaluative meaning.

10 See PNK 209, Mind I xvii.

11 “Note—metaphysics” in Card File: Finished Chapters 1-5. In: Susanne K. Langer Papers.
Houghton Library. See also Mind I 336, where Langer indicates her deviation from
Whitehead s organicism.