Rhythm is the fundamental pulse that animates poetry, music, and dance across all cultures. And yet the recent explosion of scholarly interest across disciplines in the aural dimensions of aesthetic experience--particularly in sociology, cultural and media theory, and literary studies--has yet to explore this fundamental category. This book furthers the discussion of rhythm beyond the discrete conceptual domains and technical vocabularies of musicology and prosody. With original essays by philosophers, psychologists, musicians, literary theorists, and ethno-musicologists, The Philosophy of (...) Rhythm opens up wider-and plural-perspectives, examining formal affinities between the historically interconnected fields of music, dance, and poetry, while addressing key concepts such as embodiment, movement, pulse, and performance. Volume editors Peter Cheyne, Andy Hamilton, and Max Paddison bring together a range of key questions: What is the distinction between rhythm and pulse? What is the relationship between everyday embodied experience, and the specific experience of music, dance, and poetry? Can aesthetics offer an understanding of rhythm that helps inform our responses to visual and other arts, as well as music, dance, and poetry? And, what is the relation between psychological conceptions of entrainment, and the humane concept of rhythm and meter? Overall, The Philosophy of Rhythm appeals across disciplinary boundaries, providing a unique overview of a neglected aspect of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

An impressive variety of theories of ontology of musical works has been offered in the last fifty years. Recently, the ontologists have been paying more attention to methodological issues, in particular, the problem of determining criteria of a good theory. Although different methodological approaches involve different views on the importance and exact role of intuitiveness of a theory, most philosophers writing on the ontology of music agree that intuitiveness and compliance with musical practice play an important part when judging (...) theories. A multitude of diverse claims exist regarding folk intuitions and matters of musical practice in the literature on the ontology of musical works. In this review paper, a systematized collection of about one hundred empirical claims extracted from the theoretical literature is presented. All of the empirical claims are categorized thematically. The paper also includes a short discussion on the role of appeals to common intuitions in methodological literature, as well as some suggestions for future research. (shrink)

This project aims to examine whether music has an emotional nature. I use the ancient Chinese text Music Has No Grief or Joy to construct three arguments for the illusion view, according to which music has no emotional nature and the emotional appearances of music are illusory. These arguments highlight representational inconstancy, expressive incapability, and evocative underdetermination as three ways to problematize the idea that music has an emotional nature. I draw on the Confucian tradition (...) to formulate three responses to the illusion view from representational reliability, expressive sincerity, and evocative appropriateness. These responses are shown to be inadequate. To examine the illusion view in detail, I adopt a comparative approach to structure a dialogue between ancient Eastern philosophy and contemporary Western philosophy. Nine arguments are constructed from three prominent approaches in contemporary Western musical aesthetics on the evocation, expression, and representation of emotion. I argue that each of these arguments reads emotion into music. Nevertheless, three insights emerge from the comparative discussion. The autonomy of emotional enjoyment, the possibility of emotional communication, and the function of emotional language in musical experiences call for explanations. I argue that the illusion view are amenable to these insights. The illusion view allows us to claim full ownership of emotional responses, have emotional communication by recognizing intended emotional meanings in music, and appreciate the practical value of emotional language in music industry and education. I formulate a possible objection on the basis of Charles Swann’s musical experience in Marcel Proust’s novel, according to which music has emotional agency in the formation of an emotion. This objection can be met and Swann’s musical experience can be integrated into the illusion view. The illusion view turns out to be experientially richer than it might appear at first. This project liberates musical listening and philosophical thinking from beliefs entrenched in the emotional illusion of music. (shrink)

Music as an Imitation of Harmonious Balance.

What is the folk concept of art? Does it track any of the major definitions of art philosophers have proposed? In two preregistered experiments (N = 888) focusing on two types of artworks (paintings and musical works), we manipulate three potential features of artworks: intentional creation, the possession of aesthetic value, and institutional recognition. This allows us to investigate whether the folk concept of art fits an essentialist definition drawing on one or more of the manipulated factors or (...) whether it might be a disjunctive or cluster concept. The results suggest that none of the three manipulated properties alone suffices for an object to be considered art. The folk concept of art might thus well be a cluster concept instead of an essentialist concept. (shrink)

We challenge an argument that aims to support Aesthetic Realism by claiming, first, that common sense is realist about aesthetic judgments because it considers that aesthetic judgments can be right or wrong, and, second, that becauseAesthetic Realism comes from and accounts for “folk aesthetics,” it is the best aesthetic theory available.We empirically evaluate this argument by probing whether ordinary people with no training whatsoever in the subtle debates of aesthetic philosophy consider their aesthetic judgments as right or wrong. (...) Having shown that the results do not support the main premise of the argument, we discuss the consequences for Aesthetic Realism and address possible objections to our study. (shrink)

The thesis develops a cognitivist account of the supposed ineffability of musical experience. It is contended that, when the ineffability is viewed as adhering to a certain kind of perceptual knowledge of a musical signal, its nature can be illuminated by the adoption of a recent cognitivist theory of perception in conjunction with a generative grammar for tonal music . On this two-headed view, music perception consists in a rule-governed process of computing a series of increasingly abstract mental (...) representations of a musical signal. In this framework the investigation of musical ineffability is recast as the search for a level of mental representation of whose content we are conscious but cannot make verbal report. Two types of report are distinguished--one consisting in so-called absolute identification, the other in comparative identification or discrimination. It turns out that certain features of the signal are likely to be computed at such superficial or "shallow" neuronal levels that they fail to be mentally categorized in the manner thought necessary for the learning of verbal labels and ipso facto for report of the first kind. Therein, on the present account, lies their ineffability, called 'perceptual ineffability'. These shallow features do, however, admit of comparative identification and ipso facto of the second kind of report. Hence a principal task of the thesis is to show how a kind of ineffability and a kind of report are compatible. ;The account of perceptual ineffability is then set against two well-known texts in contemporary philosophy of art in order to show that it squares with more standard approaches and makes good on its explanatory promises. It is hoped that, over and above its proposed solution to a longstanding problem in aesthetics, the present study may shed some light on the relationship between philosophical and scientific theorizing. (shrink)

This paper aims at an analytical explanation of the distinctive nature of music, as it has been formulated in perhaps one of the world's very first works on the subject, namely the ‘Sangeet Ratnakar’ of Pandit Sarangadeva, a 13th century musicologist of India. He, in the first chapter of the work defines music ('sangeet' in Sanskrit and Hindi) as a composite of singing or 'Gita', instrumental music or 'vadan' and dancing or ‘nrittam’. In addition, he also holds (...) singing to be the most important component of music. These two ideas are not only unquestionably acceptable , as the analysis in the paper will show, but give to Indian music , in its difference from western music, its distinctively spiritual character, making it a path to liberation or Moksha (Muktidayakam na tu ranjakam). Sarangadeva's reason, here, is not rational but empirico-inductive. It is that mainly by virtue of its 'gitam’ (singing component), which, like the Yoga system of exercise, needing only one's body as its instrument, music too needing only one’s voice is as self-sufficient and autonomous as the ultimate Reality itself (Swayamev Rajate). In the hierarchy (a distinctively ancient Indian insistence) of arts, singing is the highest and unique because in spite of being heard by the auditory sense, it affects our 'reflective sensibility' and transports us to the virtual world of melodic and rhythmic forms. Forms, as against their particular illustrations, are abstract universals. Ultimate Reality is also a Form-all comprehensive and internally harmonious. However, pure Form, whether melodic or religious or even rational like that of triangularity, is almost impossible to concentrate on. Realizing this practical difficulty, Indian scriptures and the world's first Grammarian-linguist, Acharya Panini, framed a composite sound as the manifestation of the ultimate musical Form. This purely formal-because devoid of all meaning, sound is that of 'om', spelt, in Sanskrit as a conjunction (sandhi) of 'a'+'u'+'m'. For Indian musicologists and musicians, ‘om’ is the perfect manifestation of the Sound-God or ‘Nada-Brahman’ because, 1. Its composite nature resembles God, as a harmony of 'sat', 'chit', and 'ananda'; and 2. The composite sound is self-existent as its all three components-two vowels, i.e. ‘a’, ‘u’, and one consonant i.e. ‘m’, can be and are pronounced just as they originally are, -un-elongated and un-vitiated and therefore pure. This is the reason why every recital of Indian classical vocal music is begun with an elaborate rendering of 'om' as an invocation to Sound-God or ‘Nada-Brahman’. Scholarly and authentic, this ancient Indian approach to music, is undoubtedly the earliest and original. My observation is that its main contentions like Sharang Dev’s insistence that of the three components of music, ‘gitam’ or singing is the highest, have only been translated and never argued for. In this presentation my good intention is to provide much needed rational support for making these key statements in this unparalleled Indian text, indubitable and unquestionable. (shrink)

Aesthetic Pursuits is a new collection of essays from Jerrold Levinson, one of the most prominent philosophers of art today, focusing on literature, film, and visual art, while addressing issues of humour, beauty, and the emotions. More than half of the essays in the volume are previously unpublished.

A new edition of this bestselling introduction to aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Includes new sections on digital music and environmental aesthetics. All other chapters have been thoroughly revised and updated.

An excerpt from the INTRODUCTORY chapter: THE word "aesthetic," which originally meant perception by the senses, has had its meaning particularized so that it usually is associated with perception of a specific kind. In this sense it is applied to the appreciative attitude of the discerning mind towards the beautiful in art and in nature. Philosophy has spent not a little time and trouble on the attempt to formulate and define the essential nature of the beautiful; but what one (...) regards as beautiful, another will either lack interest in or even positively dislike, and such attempts, therefore, have not been particularly successful. This conflict of tastes is particularly noticeable in the case of the Art of Music. One age has its ideals which are often — if not usually — opposed to those of the succeeding generation; people in one country will take pleasure in a type of music which appears incomprehensible to those of another; and, even in the case of individuals of the same time and place, what one may admire and love another will abhor and detest. In the case of Music, therefore, it seems well-nigh hopeless to attempt to formulate or define what is the "beautiful," and I have no intention in this little book of trying such an unpromising task. Each of us has his or her own ideas of what constitutes musical beauty, and in most cases the criteria on which our judgments are based are not themselves fixed but are in a state of flux and development. Many people, it is true, seem obliged to adopt a fixed standard of artistic value to which they refer and on which their artistic judgments depend, and strenuously endeavor to prevent any change in, or deviation from, the rigorous formulae which regulate their musical thinking. An enlightened and progressive attitude is, naturally, for such, an impossibility, and the inevitable and necessary developments of Art pass unnoticed or misunderstood. Some aesthetic standards, however, are necessary, and if they are allowed to share in the inevitable process of development — if they are living, not dead — assist that process by giving it both direction and progressive energy. It is not even necessary that the musician should be able to formulate clearly what are the conditions and factors in a work in virtue of which it appeals to him as beautiful or the reverse. To reduce these aesthetic values to a clean-cut statement of relations intellectually apprehended, would, by that very act, tend to induce reference to dead and mechanical standards. The feeling of the beautiful is something which is intuitive, and which neither needs to be explained, nor can be explained, in terms of reason. In fact, it is something apprehended immediately, "perceived through the senses," and can no more be "explained" than those sensations which we call heat, cold, sweet, sour, etc. The Art of Music as practised in countries which owe their culture and civilization to Western Europe is the outgrowth of a body of doctrine and dogma which is extremely elaborate and complex. But for the fact that much of it is obviously derived from convention and custom rather than from natural law, it might almost be called a Science. It is very doubtful, however, if the feeling for the beautiful in Music is more keen in the case of the individual expert in the niceties of this quasi-science than in him who is entirely ignorant of its laws and conventions. (shrink)

Why do people read novels, go to the theater, or listen to beautiful music? Do we seek out aesthetic experiences simply because we enjoy them--or is there another, deeper, reason we spend our leisure time viewing or experiencing works of art? Aesthetics, the first short introduction to the contemporary philosophy of aesthetics, examines not just the nature of the aesthetic experience, but the definition of art, and its moral and intrinsic value in our lives. Anne Sheppard divides her (...) work into two parts: In the first, she summarizes the major theories defining art and beauty; in the second, she explores the nature of aesthetic evaluation and appreciation. As Sheppard explains, there are three main approaches to defining art, all focused on what art objects share. One proposes that all art imitates something in life, another that it expresses something (such as anger or ecstasy), still another suggests that all art has formal qualities. There is also a fourth which offers that all art shares the quality of beauty. In the second part, which concentrates on literary art, Sheppard explores such philosophic topics as critical judgment, meaning and truth in literature, and the relationship between art and morals. She raises such questions as whether there is one correct interpretation of a work of art and whether art has a moral effect on its audience and, citing specific examples, explores the views that have been put forth. A wide-ranging, intriguing book, which assumes no formal knowledge on the part of its readers, Aesthetics opens the door to a greater understanding and appreciation of art. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the research work of M.N. Zhirkov, which became the first monographic study of the musical culture of the Yakuts. The object of the study is the problems of musicology first posed by the author of this study. The article discusses such aspects as the difficult fate of the manuscript of M.N. Zhirkov's research, which was unpublished for a long time, and at the first publication was not published in its full form, in addition, the (...) experience of a new reprint of this work in the 9th volume of M.N. Zhirkov's "Collected Works". Special attention is paid to those areas of his work that at that time were in the circle of the most pressing theoretical problems of musical culture of the peoples of the former Soviet Union. The main conclusions of the study are the author's generalizations of the fundamental results of M.N. Zhirkov's work, which at the time of writing this work were advanced not only in terms of the level of development of Russian musicology, but now look quite modern in their relevance and fundamental nature. A special contribution of the author to the topic under development is the analysis of those parts of the study that were not published in the first publication of 1981. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time attention is drawn to the original full text of the original version of the "Yakut folk Music" by M.N.Zhirkov. The article summarizes the author's experience of the new edition of this unique work. (shrink)

Rhythm is an underexplored topic in contemporary Anglophone philosophy of music.1 This collection is an attempt to change this trend. It contains twenty-four essays, dealing with issues that range from the ontology of rhythm to questions regarding its existence and relative importance in art forms other than music.I cannot here discuss all of the contributions and my selection should not be taken as indicative of differences in quality among the various chapters.The book’s introduction is worthy of mention, (...) as it is more than a chapter-by-chapter overview. The editors trace a brief history of the philosophical debate on rhythm from antiquity to the present day, stressing the relative lack of interest for this topic.This collection moves therefore in largely uncharted territory, although various essays are firmly grounded in debates that are familiar to contemporary philosophers of art. Ted Gracyk’s essay ‘Rhythm, Resemblance, and Musical Expressiveness’ is an example of this, as it is an attempt to expand on resemblance theories of musical expressiveness by showing that rhythm is crucial to establishing the relevant resemblance between music and expressive behaviour. Gracyk persuasively argues that taking rhythm into account allows resemblance theories to tackle some recurring objections and difficulties. For instance, the centrality of pace and gait to our lives may explain why we automatically focus on music’s resemblance to human movement, as opposed to any of the countless other things it resembles. Moreover, rhythmic entrainment (synchronization to music's rhythm) may be the reason why music sometimes arouses the emotions which it expresses, a claim famously defended by Stephen Davies (2011). Just as it is partly by entraining to other people’s movements that we may come to experience the emotions they experience, we are infected by the music’s mood by entraining to its rhythm. (shrink)

Country music has not gotten much attention in philosophy. I introduce two philosophical issues that country music raises. First, country music is simple. Some people might think that its simplicity makes country music worse; I argue that simplicity is aesthetically valuable. The second issue is country music’s ideal of authenticity; fans and performers think that country should be real or genuine in a particular way. But country music scholars have debunked the idea that (...) country authenticity gets at anything real; widespread ideas about country authenticity are rooted in a racist and fabricated picture of country music. In discussing these two issues, I highlight the importance of community in country music. (shrink)

This book proposes a new methodology for aesthetics, where problems in philosophy are addressed by examining how aesthetic phenomena are understood in the human sciences. Lopes then puts the methodology to work, illuminating the perceptual and social-pragmatic capacities involved in responding to works of visual art, literature, and music.

Painting -- Photography and film -- Architecture and the third dimension -- Music -- Literature -- Performance -- Popular art and everyday aesthetics -- Classic sources -- Contemporary sources.

As readers of this book will discover, from several disputes with me contained in its pages, Scruton and I are not in accord on a number of matters in the philosophy of music. Notwithstanding that, and more generally the fact that the book is controlled by a phenomenological-idealist perspective on music that I regard as fundamentally misplaced, in my estimation The Aesthetics of Music is the most valuable work to date on the subject of its title, (...) one that addresses that subject in its full range and complexity, and one that is full of insight and instruction, both musical and philosophical, at every turn. It is must reading for anyone concerned with philosophical reflection on music. (shrink)

The Western history of aesthetics is characterised by tension between theory and practice. Musicians listen, play, and then listen more profoundly in order to play differently, adapt the body, and sense the environment. They become deeply involved in the sensorial qualities of music practice. Artistic practice refers to the original meaning of aesthetics - the senses. Whereas Baumgarten and Goethe explored the relationship between sensibility and reason, sensation and thinking, later philosophers of aesthetics deemed the sensorial to be confused (...) and unreliable and instead prioritised a cognitive or objective approach. Written by authors from the fields of philosophy, composition, performance, and artistic practice, 'Sensorial Aesthetics in Music Practices' repositions aesthetics as a domain of the sensible and explores the interaction between artists, life, and environment. Aesthetics becomes a field of sensorial and embodied experience involving temporal and spatial influences, implicit knowledge, and human characteristics. (shrink)

La musique, en tout cas la classique - nous ne le cachons pas -, est morte.

What is music, what is its value, and what does it mean? In this stimulating volume, Roger Scruton offers a comprehensive account of the nature and significance of music from the perspective of modern philosophy. The study begins with the metaphysics of sound. Scruton distinguishes sound from tone; analyzes rhythm, melody, and harmony; and explores the various dimensions of musical organization and musical meaning. Taking on various fashionable theories in the philosophy and theory of music, (...) he presents a compelling case for the moral significance of music, its place in our culture, and the need for taste and discrimination in performing and listening to it. Laying down principles for musical analysis and criticism, this bold work concludes with a theory of culture--and a devastating demolition of modern popular music. "A provocative new study."--The Guardian. (shrink)

Opinionated and example-filled, this extremely concise and accessible book provides a survey of some fundamental and longstanding debates about the nature of music. The central arguments and ideas of historical and contemporary philosophers are presented with the goal of making them as accessible as possible to general readers who have no background in philosophy. The emphasis is on instrumental music, but examples are drawn from many cultures as well as from Western classical, jazz, folk, and popular (...) music. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive book-length introduction to the philosophy of Western music that fully integrates consideration of popular music and hybrid musical forms, especially song. Its author, Andrew Kania, begins by asking whether Bob Dylan should even have been eligible for the Nobel Prize in Literature, given that he is a musician. This motivates a discussion of music as an artistic medium, and what philosophy has to contribute to our thinking about music. Chapters (...) 2-5 investigate the most commonly defended sources of musical value: its emotional power, its form, and specifically musical features (such as pitch, rhythm, and harmony). In chapters 6-9, Kania explores issues arising from different musical practices, particularly work-performance (with a focus on classical music), improvisation (with a focus on jazz), and recording (with a focus on rock and pop). Chapter 10 examines the intersection of music and morality. The book ends with a consideration of what, ultimately, music is. (shrink)

Electronic dance music has much about it to interest philosophers. In this article, I explore facets of dance music cultures, using the issue of authenticity as a framing question. The problem of sorting real or authentic dance music from mainstream or commercial clubbing can be treated as a matter of history and genre-definition; as a matter of defining scenes or subcultures; and as a matter of blackness. In each case, electronic dance music, and critical discourse surrounding (...) it, offers fresh illumination of aesthetic questions. I briefly characterise the main genres of dance music, match conversations about the hardcore continuum with philosophers’ accounts of genre, survey sociologists’ ways of thinking about cultures and their connections to taste and personal identity, and link criticisms that dance music now lacks blackness to conceptions of black aesthetics. This article is Part I of two; Part II focusses on dancers, DJs, and the aesthetics and ontology of dance music itself. Video abstract. (shrink)

Under the vision of music education philosophy, we construct a practical path that conforms to the philosophy of music education and effectively improves students’ music literacy, and comprehensively assess the actual effect of music education in promoting students’ aesthetic literacy enhancement and comprehensive personality development. When determining the weights of the evaluation indicators of education and cultivation, a judgement matrix is constructed using the hierarchical analysis method, and a nine-quartile relative importance ratio scale standard (...) is used to compare the importance of each indicator. A consistency test was conducted to ensure the reasonableness of the judgement matrix. The evaluation results show that the aesthetic critical thinking score of 91.7 reaches the excellent level, indicating that students are enough to think independently, analyse the advantages and disadvantages of musical works, and form their own aesthetic judgments. Music aesthetic perception, music history and culture understanding, and music performance skills mastery were in the good grade with scores of 85.3, 78.9 and 87.5 respectively. Musical aesthetic creativity 76.2 reflects that students have some room for upward movement in music creation. Moral Values and Sense of Responsibility 89.4, indicating that students have achieved remarkable results in the development of moral values and sense of responsibility. Intercultural Communication and Understanding, 67.5, is near the lower end of the pass mark and requires greater educational efforts in this area. The results of the data and the grades are used to formulate targeted music education strategies, including strengthening the cultivation of aesthetic critical thinking, enhancing the cultivation of emotion and mood management skills, and improving self-awareness and intercultural communication skills, in order to jointly promote the synergistic development of aesthetic education and personality cultivation. (shrink)

Romantic music aesthetics has often been reduced to tired clichés of ineffable feeling and art for art's sake. This book instead explores the groundbreaking philosophical insights and radical politics that Romantic thinkers applied to music - both popular and classical - and the emotions it inspires.

Excerpt from The Philosophy of Modernism (in Its Connection With Music) The prerequisite to immortality in the world of art is the capacity to create something new, or, in other words, the capacity to invent a style. Indeed, let any one but survey the past history of music, poetry and painting, and he will notice that each great name stands for a literary or musical invention: so that to talk of Keats or Shelley, Beethoven or Wagner, is (...) not to talk of men only, but also of very distinct styles of art. And this capacity to create something new proceeds from a certain divine discontent - divine, because it stimulates evolution, is mild and pleasant, yet just sufficient to prevent the man who possesses it from sinking into that unprogressive lassitude so often associated with a good glass of port wine, a widow's cruse of tobacco, and a rather soporific fireside. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Aesthetic Noise: The Philosophy of Intentional Listening considers the complex nature of noise within the framework of philosophical filtering, examining how, if noise is engaged with aesthetically, it can produce profound experiences and understandings. Applying the philosophies of Edmund Burke, Martin Heidegger, Jacque Derrida, and Julia Kristeva to works by Luigi Russolo, John Cage, Steve Reich, Alison Knowles, Annea Lockwood, Alyce Santoro, and Sunn O))), this book explores noise as an art material, and ultimately how it can become a (...) tool for activism and expanded creative possibilities. It demonstrates that, by engaging multiple philosophies in concert, the value of aesthetic noise is amplified, thus allowing the listener to better appreciate noise and its possibilities. Providing greater insights into noise as an aesthetic material, Aesthetic Noise will be of interest to researchers and students of sound studies, philosophy, and sound art, as well as sound designers, artists, musicians, and composers. (shrink)

Serial music was one of the most important aesthetic movements to emerge in post-war Europe, but its uncompromising music and modernist aesthetic has often been misunderstood. This book focuses on the controversial journal die Reihe, whose major contributors included Stockhausen, Eimert, Pousseur, Dieter Schnebel and G. M. Koenig, and discusses it in connection with many lesser-known sources in German musicology. It traces serialism's debt to the theories of Klee and Mondrian, and its relationship to developments in concrete art, (...) modern poetry and the information aesthetics and semiotics of Max Bense and Umberto Eco. M. J. Grant sketches an aesthetic theory of serialism as experimental music, arguing that serial theory's embrace of both rigorous intellectualism and aleatoric processes is not, as many have suggested, a paradox, but the key to serial thought and to its relevance for contemporary theory. (shrink)

Does it make sense to refer to bird song - a complex vocalization, full of repetitive and transformative patterns that are carefully calculated to woo a mate - as art? What about a pack of wolves howling in unison or the cacophony made by an entire rain forest? Redefining music as "the art of possibly animate things," Musical Vitalities charts a new path for music studies that blends musicological methods with perspectives drawn from the life sciences. In opposition (...) to humanist approaches that insist on a separation between culture and nature--approaches that appear increasingly untenable in an era defined by human-generated climate change--Musical Vitalities treats music as one example of the cultural practices and biotic arts of the animal kingdom rather than as a phenomenon categorically distinct from nonhuman forms of sonic expression. The book challenges the human exceptionalism that has allowed musicologists to overlook music's structural resemblances to the songs of nonhuman species, the intricacies of music's physiological impact on listeners, and the many analogues between music's formal processes and those of the dynamic natural world. Through close readings of Austro-German music and aesthetic writings that suggest wide-ranging analogies between music and nature, Musical Vitalities seeks to both rekindle the critical potential of nineteenth-century music and rejoin the humans at the center of the humanities with the nonhumans whose evolutionary endowments and planetary fates they share. (shrink)

Aesthetics of Music: Musicological Approaches is an anthology of fourteen essays, each addressing a single key concept or pair of terms in the aesthetics of music, collectively serving as an authoritative work on musical aesthetics that remains as close to 'the music' as possible. Each essay includes musical examples from works in the 18th, 19th, and into the 20th century. Topics have been selected from amongst widely recognised central issues in musical aesthetics, as well as those that (...) have been somewhat neglected, to create a collection that covers a distinctive range of ideas. All essays cover historical origins, sources, and developments of the chosen idea, survey important musicological approaches, and offer new critical angles or musical case studies in interpretation. (shrink)

Pop music is a form of indexical art -- Pop music belongs to the second of three culture industries -- At the heart of pop music is no object, but an impulse to connect -- An assembly of effects and small noises -- Minus music : popularity and criticism -- Production aesthetics.

This essay is an attempt to understand the reasons for the current crisis of musical aesthetics. It examines the function of this discipline as the mediator between philosophy and musicology, it inquires into its connections with the ideals of autonomy, beauty and free subjectivity. During the 20th Century, major changes in society and their communication forms happened; anthropology and semiotics began to compete with aesthetics in explaining musical facts. The last paragraphs test the chances of resistance of musical aesthetics (...) ; musical meaning appears to be the only question which endured in spite of the considerable fragmentation and loss of profile of musical experience. (shrink)

German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel problematized the term “aesthetics” in his writings on art. This article attempts to capture the tension between Hegel's theory of art and philosophy of art and its impact on the subsequent theorization of art in the twentieth century as consumer or emancipatory. Music, poetry and plastic arts seem to resonate differently with philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel and Adorno. Plato considered music soothing to the soul. In Aristotle, one could (...) trace the oblique beginnings of the tension between a theory of art and a philosophy of art as he questioned the role of art in philosophy. While Kant's approach is more formal and deals with concepts such as beauty, sublime, genius, and the status of aesthetic objects, Hegel grapples with the rational and emotional aspects of works of art which determine whether art is free or under the thralldom of nature. Both Kant and Hegel distinguished artistic from natural beauty. Critical theorists such as Adorno were also influenced by Hegel. Adorno's analysis of concepts such as mimesis forms an important part of his critique of culture industry. Adorno was also emphatic that classical art could only exist as a product of an epoch. Yet in its dialectical form, art serves as a critique of ideology. Progressively, from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, what began as a crevice between a philosophy of art and a theory of art became a chasm. Thus, begins a contentious relationship between art as a pursuit in itself and art for consumption, that is, art as an integral aspect of consumer culture. The new phenomenon of AI art also poses interesting questions about the paradigmatic shift in dynamics between human element and technology. This article would also attempt to trace how art continues to defy reification, while in the process being consumed constantly, recreating and reinventing itself. (shrink)

Bloch's Teppich : an initial approach -- On the genealogy of the Teppich metaphor before Bloch -- The conceptual constellation of Bloch's musical philosophy -- Entering Bloch's musical system -- Wagner's animal lyricism -- Bloch's vision of the armored men, or the limits of enlightenment -- The achievement of symphonic authenticity -- Epilogue : an atheism of presence and absence.

A central method within analytic philosophy has been to construct thought experiments in order to subject philosophical theories to intuitive evaluation. According to a widely held view, philosophical intuitions provide an evidential basis for arguments against such theories, thus rendering the discussion rational. This method has been the predominant way to approach theories formulated as conditional or biconditional statements. In this paper, we examine selected theories of musical expressivity presented in such logical forms, analyzing the possibilities for constructing thought (...) experiments against them. We will argue that philosophical intuitions are not available for the evaluation of the types of counterarguments that would need to be constructed. Instead, the evaluation of these theories, to the extent that it can succeed at all, will centrally rely on inferential, non-immediate access to our subjective musical experiences. Furthermore, attempted thought experiments lose their methodological function because no proper distinction can be drawn between the persons figuring in the thought-experimental scenario and the evaluator of the scenario. Consequently, some of the central contributions to what is generally understood to be analytic philosophy of art are shown to represent a form of aesthetic criticism, offering much less basis for rational argumentation than is often thought. (shrink)

This volume, reproducing a special issue of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism on &"The Philosophy of Music&" (Winter 1994) with a revised introduction and two new articles, is distinguished by its breadth of content, diversity of approaches, and clarity of argument, which should make it useful for classroom teaching. The topics covered include musical representation, the expression of feeling in music, the metaphysics of operatic speech and song, musical understanding, musical composition, feminist music theory, (...) music and politics, music and racial identity, music in non-Western cultures, and the ontological implications of recording technology for rock music. The approaches used are philosophical, historical, social and political, feminist, and ethnomusicological. The book includes discussions of a great many styles and historical periods of music, from ancient Greek music and music theory to instrumental and operatic music in the Western classical tradition, Persian music, music of the Blackfoot Indians, rock and the blues, and the avant-garde compositions and performances of John Cage. The contributors, all eminent scholars in the field, are Philip Alperson, No&ël Carroll, Stephen Davies, Claire Detels, John Andrew Fisher, Lydia Goehr, Peter Kivy, Jerrold Levinson, James Manns, Bruno Nettl, Jenefer Robinson, Joel Rudinow, G&öran S&örbom, Francis Sparshott, and Kendall Walton. (shrink)

As illustrated in Goethe's famous novel of the same name, elective affinities are powerful relationships that crystallize under changing conditions. In this new book, Lydia Goehr focuses on the history of elective affinities between philosophy and music from German classicism, romanticism, and idealism to the modernist aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno and Arthur C. Danto. Aesthetic theory, she argues, depends on a dynamic philosophy of history centered on tendencies, yearnings, needs, and potentialities. With this in mind, (...) she recasts the theses of Adorno and Danto regarding the death or end of philosophy, art, music, and human experience as arguments for continuation and survival. _Elective Affinities_ tracks the migration of aesthetic and critical theory from Germany to the United States following the catastrophic period of the twentieth century marked by the Second World War. (shrink)