Mag. art. Dr. Lona Gaikis

May 1 - July 31, 2026

Affiliation: Independent Researcher, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna; University of Vienna; TU Wien (Technische Universität Wien)

Research for a study about:

The ‘Practical Unreason’ of a Hard-Headed Logician: Susanne K. Langer  on “Feeling” as the Logic of Organic Processes 

PROJECT
This project traces Susanne K. Langer’s connections with founding Vienna Circle members Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap, as well as the deeper relationships she established with later-exiled scholars, Eugen T. Gadol and Herbert Feigl. It reviews her ambition to develop an analytic philosophy of the arts and examines her critical legacy within the spectrum of logical empiricism, particularly her attempt to grasp the pre-rationative levels of meaning-in-the-making. This research is, furthermore, curious about resonances within the Vienna Circle’s extended orbit, with some remaining ‘unsung’ protagonists. 
Susanne K. Langer (1895-1985) made a remarkably bold proposal within her discipline by approaching the study of reason in 1942 with the symbolisms of rite and the arts. Strongly engaged in the philosophical debates following Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1921), and contributing to the rise of the “‘analytic type’ of philosophy” (Langer 1930, 17), she famously expanded her semiological toolkit beyond the discursive form of language to the presentational symbolism (Langer 1942) to provide insight into “the possibility that rationality arises as an elaboration of feeling” (Langer 1957, 124). Initially semantic in orientation, her thought evolves by 1953 in collaboration with Eugen T. Gadol as her research assistant into a comprehensive phenomenology of the arts, offering a theoretical instrument to capture the virtual image of feeling’s dynamic structure. The graduate of Whitehead will, later on, ground “feeling” empirically as process with biological and anthropological studies in her trilogy Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (published 1967, 1972, and 1982). 

Lecture

The 'Practical Unreason' of a Hard-Headed Logician: Susanne K. Langer on "Feeling" as the Logic of Organic Processes

IVC Philosophy of Science Colloquium 

Date: June 18, 2026

Time: 4.45 pm -6.15 pm CET

Venue for all talks: Lecture Hall 3C, NIG Universitätsstraße 7, 3rd floor, NIG/ Neues Institutsgebäude, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna

Abstract:
Analytic philosopher Susanne K. Langer (1895-1985) made a remarkably bold proposal within her discipline by approaching the study of reason in 1942 with the symbolisms of rite and the arts. Strongly engaged in the philosophical debates following Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1921), and contributing to the rise of the “‘analytic type’ of philosophy” (Langer 1930, 17), she famously expanded her semiological toolkit beyond discursive form to presentational symbolism, in an attempt to provide insight into “the possibility that rationality arises as an elaboration of feeling” (Langer 1957, 124). Initially semantic in orientation, her thought evolves by 1953 in collaboration with Eugen T. Gadol into a comprehensive phenomenology of the arts, offering a theoretical instrument to capture the virtual images of feeling’s dynamic structure. The graduate of Whitehead will, later on, ground “feeling” empirically as process with biological and anthropological studies in her trilogy Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (published 1967, 1972, and 1982). It seems in review that Langer’s thought matched the rigour of her contemporaries, and carried on with the challenges her early writing encountered from the Vienna Circle’s Positivism. While the first half of her book, The Practice of Philosophy (1930) was received with praise for its clarity over philosophy’s foundational task as the “pursuit of meaning” (Langer 1930, 23), its second half already pointed to her nascent investigation of sensory modes of meaning as the “special ‘sixth sense,’ called Insight” (1930, 152). She herself commented that “TO self-respecting, hard-headed logicians, the title of this chapter will probably suggest a decline and fall of the author's Pure Reason, and the advent of some Practical Unreason” (Ibid.).
This presentation picks up on Langer’s ambition of an analytic philosophy of the arts, and seeks to draw attention to her critical legacy within the spectrum of logical empiricism.

Report Research Summary

During my fellowship at the Institute Vienna Circle (May – August 2026), I deepened my research into the early analytic period of US-American philosopher Susanne K. Langer (1895-1985). Although Langer is historically considered a philosopher of art or an “artists' philosopher”, my project aimed to understand her work better within the broader context of the analytic tradition. I sought to illuminate her intellectual ties to the Vienna Circle – particularly to Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, and the Unity of Science Movement (until 1939) – while remaining within the scope of her logic of ‘feeling’.

By tracing the mentions of Langer in Moritz Schlick’s second version of his manuscript on “The Future of Philosophy” (1931), I reconstructed the impression Langer left on the founder of the Vienna Circle. Schlick had highly praised her book The Practice of Philosophy (1930) in a letter to the publisher Henry Holt in March 1931 after reviewing it (see Verhaegh 2022; 2024). This shows that, when revising a previous draft, he saw the need to publicly address and comment on the advanced scholar’s book (Langer was 36 years old at that time). His 1931 manuscript reveals a sharp methodological divergence between Langer’s proposed structural approach in logic and his own logical positivism. While he acknowledged Langer as a brilliant peer in their shared “pursuit of meaning” – and was possibly the first to identify the ‘analytic type’ of philosophy – he nevertheless objected to her proposition of turning logic into a rational science in its own right. A closer reading of The Practice of Philosophy shows that Langer understood that the turning point at which science and philosophy began pursuing separate paths – through logical analysis – was itself a symbolistic progression in the evolution of thought. Instead of limiting the scope of sensible meaning to science (discursive form), she opened the filters of reason to the presentational form in the arts, ritual and cultural expression without resorting to metaphysics.

In addition to my previously conducted research at the University of Vienna and the library of the IVC (2024-2025), I reviewed Vienna Circle minutes and transcripts taken 1930-1932 in the digital archive of Rose Rand Papers (Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh). At the start of my fellowship, however, I could only find one bundle digitised: ‘“Wiener Kreis: Vorträge und Diskussion” and “Thesen”’ (pp 98),1931-1932. Since then, a significant amount of additional archival material has been digitised, which would be worthwhile to review for traces of Susanne K. Langer and her book, includes: ‘Minutes and Transcriptions from the Vienna Circle,’ 1931 (pp. 99); ‘Notes, Transcriptions, and Minutes: A-L’ 1930-1931 (pp. 206). In his letter to Henry Holt, Schlick expressed the wish for his students to access the book.

It appears that Schlick's rejection of Langer's proposal to turn logic into a rational science could have also been influenced by his critical reading of Russell's mathematical philosophy and his concept of identity. This was evident when comparing Rose Rand's transcripts of Schlick's ideas 1931-1932 with Langer's early papers 1926-1929, her dissertation from 1926, and The Practice of Philosophy (1930), all of which made heavy references to Bertrand Russell's philosophy of mathematics.

I conclude this research with a recognized need to further explore Langer’s relation to Russell’s formal analyses. Furthermore, evidence suggests that Russell attended meetings of the philosophical circle Langer hosted at Harvard in 1929. Consequently, material illuminating their relationship may likely be found in the Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University.