Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art

“Error is the price we pay for progress.” This is a quote from Alfred North Whitehead that humbly concludes this book, which has Whitehead as its dedicatee.

This work is in two, broad parts. The first, greater part distinguishes between signal/sign and symbol. My cat knows its name as a sign for attention from its owner. I can now "Albert Einstein" as a symbol for someone I have never even met or seen and all that that entails.

Hinted at by some music notation examples, the second part courageously attempts to define art and settles on music as the case to build on. Art is expression: the transport a symbol makes but without untethered to a language.

This work will appeal to students of philosophy, philologists, and aestheticians.

language theory, good section on ritual and myth

It is the main work of American philosopher Susanne K. Langer, first published in 1941. In it she declares that "Symbolism was the ‘new key’ to understanding how the human mind transformed the primal need to express oneself."
Langer elaborates her thesis in freshly conceived and interesting studies contained in chapters treating of the logic of signs and symbols, a comparison of discursive and presentational forms of symbolism (perhaps the heart of the book), verbal language, life symbols as the roots of sacrament and myth, the significance of music, the genesis of artistic import, and the fabric of meaning.