“Fire is a natural symbol of life and passion, though it is the one element in which nothing can actually live.” PassionNaturalFireElementsSymbolsLife And Passion Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“Music is 'significant form,' and its significance is that of a symbol, a highly articulated, sensuous object, which by virtue of its dynamic structure can express the forms of vital experience which language is peculiarly unfit to convey. Feeling, life, motion and emotion constitute its import.” FeelingsFormLanguageEmotionMusicVirtueObjectsMusic IsStructureSignificantSymbolsSignificanceImportsSensuous Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“A signal is comprehended if it serves to make us notice the object or situation it bespeaks. A symbol is understood when we conceive the idea it presents.” IfsIdeasSituationObjectsUnderstoodSymbolsSignals Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“Nature, as man has always known it, he knows no more. Since he has learned to esteem signs above symbols, to suppress his emotional reactions in favor of practical ones and make use of nature instead of holding so much of it sacred, he has altered the face, if not the heart, of reality.” IfsKnowsMenHeartUseRealityFacesKnownEmotionalSacredFavorsPracticalsReactionsEsteemSymbolsAlteredEmotional Reactions 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
