Philosophy In A New Key By Susanne Langer

895 Words4 Pages

Philosophy in a New Key The author of Philosophy in a New Key, Susanne Langer, discusses the ideas the challenge our way of thinking of everyday life. Langer constructs her book to break down simple thoughts and ideas to their core meaning. The topics discussed in Philosophy in a New Key are very vast but they all connect to each other in similar ways. Although Langer analyzes many ideas, I will be selecting five topics in this paper to review and put into perspective in the best way I can. These topics can be discussed covering multiple pages, but in this paper, I will identify the key concepts of each topic. This paper will include, emic and etic concepts, the nature of math and music, the image making process, sensory perception, and outlook …show more content…

The difference between the two concepts is based on the point of view of the observer. An emic concept is a subjective idea along with the observer’s attitudes and opinions. An etic concept is objective and is characterized by lack of feeling and an attempt to remain unbiased. When conducting emic research, the perceptions of the person alters the information being evaluated. Langer states, “Different minds will take the same events in different ways.” (Langer, p.6) Adding personal elements is beneficial to observation because Langer considers the main goal of language to be communication. (Langer, p.109) Even though each reader has their own experiences, they will still be influenced by observations. The observations will give more understanding without directly giving the same perceptive to the reader and the researcher, or two different …show more content…

“Image-making is the mode of our untutored thinking, and stories are its earliest product,” (Langer, p.145). Image-making plays off of fantasies and metaphors which are the only ways to create new meanings. Langer describes that that beauty of a successful language is in the capacity to have a stronger understanding of meaning. The brain consists of two parts, right and left. The right brain perceives images and understands rightness. The biggest parts of learning come from the right side of the brain. Images and knowledge perceived from the right side of the brain help us to understand the words we have. The left side of the brain is primarily language. Understanding something is different than having the words to express it. This is how the two parts of the brain work