- Lived:
- 1895–1985 · New York City, Cambridge (Massachusetts), and a farmhouse in Old Lyme, Connecticut
- Tradition:
- American philosophy of symbol, art, and mind — analytic training turned toward music, myth, and feeling
- The Big Idea:
- Human beings are the symbol-making animal: our minds constantly transform raw experience into symbols, and the arts are not decoration but a distinct, rigorous way of knowing what feeling is like.
- In their words:
- "philosophy in a new key"
- If you remember one thing:
- The most widely read American philosopher of her generation spent decades unable to get a permanent job — and gave us the best account anyone has of why music can say what words cannot.