Susanne K. Langer, Author of ‘Philosophy in a New Key,’ Dies

Susanne K. Langer, a philosopher whose classic book “Philosophy in a New Key” has sold more than half a million copies since 1942, has died. She was 89.

Mrs. Langer, who died Wednesday at her home in Old Lyme, Conn., devised a novel system of thought to analyze the sources, forms and effects of art. She was considered a maverick in the field.

Contemporary philosophers say Mrs. Langer helped changed the way they think about aesthetics. In contrast to generally held views, she believed the artist seeks to portray the nature of feeling, not to arouse or convey feeling through music, painting or sculpture.

She was born in New York and earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Harvard University in 1924; two years later she received her doctorate from Harvard.

As an undergraduate, she met William Leonard Langer, a historian, and they married in 1921. They were divorced in 1942. She is survived by two sons, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.