“A mind that is very selective to forms... is apt to use its images metaphorically, to exploit their possible significance for the conception of remote or intangible ideas.” MindIdeasUseFormSignificanceConceptionExploitsSelectiveIntangible Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“Language is, without a doubt, the most momentous and at the same time the most mysterious product of the human mind.” MindHumansLanguageDoubtProductsMysteriousHuman Mind Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“The power of magic has no known limits. A person knows, in a fair way, his own physical capacities, the weight of the blows he can deal, the furthest range of his arrows, the strength of his voice, the speed and endurance of his running; but the reaches of his mind are indefinite and, to his feeling, infinite.” KnowsWayMindPersonsFeelingsRunningVoiceDealsKnownMagicLimitsCapacityFairsWeightInfiniteBlowSpeedRangeEnduranceArrows Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“The development of beings with minds is probably the highest individuation the world has ever known, and its prehistory is the history of life on earth.” WorldMindEarthKnownDevelopmentHighestIndividuationPrehistoryHistory Of Life Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“It is the historical mind, rather than the scientific (in the physicist's sense), that destroyed the mythical orientation of European culture; the historian, not the mathematician, introduced the "higher criticism," the standard of actual fact. It is he who is the real apostle of the realistic age.” MindRealFactsAgeCultureHigherStandardsCriticismHistoricalDestroyedRealisticHistorianMathematicianPhysicistApostlesOrientation Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“The power of understanding symbols, i.e. of regarding everything about a sense-datum as irrelevant except a certain form that it embodies, is the most characteristic mental trait of mankind. It issues in an unconscious, spontaneous process of abstraction, 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 accordingly. That is the real sense of Aristotle's definition of Man as "the rational animal".” MenMindHumansRealFormCertainGivenProcessUnderstandingAnimalIssuesMankindGoes OnConceptsDefinitionsRationalSymbolsDataCharacteristicsUnconsciousHuman MindConceptionTraitsSpontaneousIrrelevantAbstractionRecognizingConfiguration Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“To trace the development of mind from earliest times ... requires ... not a categorical concept, but a functional one.... The most promising operational principle for this purpose is the principle of individuation.” MindPurposePrinciplesDevelopmentConceptsIndividuation Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“The limits of thought are not so much set from outside, by the fullness or poverty of experiences that meet the mind, as from within, by the power of conception, the wealth of formulative notions with which the mind meets experiences.” MindWealthPovertyLimitsNotionConceptionFullness Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
