In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Visual Aesthetic ExperienceElisa Steenberg, Independent ScholarMan can shift his attitude to the surrounding world into an experience of its visual appearance. He perceives colors, lines, shapes, etc.—at times denoted as form. Furthermore, these phenomena may be experienced as having various properties. A color may be experienced as warm or cold, as cheerful or somber; a line as soft or hard, as merry or aggressive; a shape as (...) light or heavy. Moreover, such experiences may include pleasure or displeasure, implying that what is experienced is liked or disliked. The individual has a preference value experience. This should not be confounded with an evaluation, a value judgment, which requires cognitive activity and a comparison. The experience described I designate a visual aesthetic experience.Research into processes in the brain may offer explanations of the neurological antecedents to the visual aesthetic experience. To see a color as cold or warm may depend on sense-interrelating processes. To experience a color or line as cheerful, somber, etc., might be explained as due to simultaneous processes in the regions of the brain that are the mainsprings of emotions. The preference valuations might be due to processes in the brain's so-called primary reward-aversion center. It seems most likely that future brain research, with the help of such techniques as PET scanning (Positron Emission Tomography) or MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging)—what has been called "windows into the human brain"—may offer explanations regarding the physiological and biochemical processes that happen when our attitude to the world around us is shifted into what is here designated a visual aesthetic experience.1When did man first evince visual aesthetic experiences and when do they first occur in an individual's life? Certain anthropologists assert that positive visual aesthetic experiences first occurred when man was able to experience form as symmetrical and balanced, colors as bright and possibly shiny. This they claim is due to balance and order being a fundamental condition in man's life, and preferences for bright colors they consider due to man being a daylight creature who feels insecure in darkness.2 We know that so-called primitive people and young children like symmetric patterns and bright colors. The child reaches out for light red and yellow objects rather than for dark and black ones. With increasing age, though, the child's [End Page 89] visual preferences usually change, and this occurs mainly within the framework of his or her manmade surroundings. The child becomes accustomed to seeing certain objects while feeling pleasure and thus comes to appreciate their appearance. However, such experiences are rather vague before the child reaches the age when its personality is formed. Then especially girls often develop a keen interest in the appearance of objects around them.A general survey among adults shows that there are considerable varieties in individuals' inclinations for visual aesthetic experiences. There are those who have them rather seldom. Their attitudes to the surrounding world are primarily cognitive. Their attentions are focused on meanings, the "what" not the "how," in order to understand and to cope with what they see. On the other hand, there are individuals who most frequently hold an aesthetic attitude to their surroundings. They pay attention to shapes, colors, and color combinations of all kinds of objects, natural or manmade. They choose their clothes and their home furnishings under careful aesthetic considerations. This inclination may possibly be claimed to be due to an innate disposition for holding visual aesthetic attitudes, to be compared with, for example, an individual's innate musicality. However, it is undoubtedly also due to certain social circumstances.Visual aesthetic experiences are denoted taste manifestations. As such they may be investigated not only as to their occurrences and changes in an individual's life but also as a changing sociocultural phenomenon.3Verbalizing the Visual Aesthetic ExperienceThe psychic content of a visual aesthetic experience may be revealed to other individuals by application of aesthetic property terms to the appearance of objects. The terms are either what is here called descriptive or they are value terms. Examples of descriptive aesthetic terms are graceful, garish, gaudy, clumsy, elegant, dainty, vivid, flamboyant, etc. These terms may... (shrink)

In this article, I relate the demand that Paul Ricoeur suggests mimesis places on the way we think about truth to the idea that the work of art is a model for thinking about testimony. By attributing a work’s epoché of reality to the work of imagination, I resolve the impasse that arises from attributing music, literature, and art’s distance from the real to their social emancipation. Examining the conjunction, in aesthetic experience, of the communicability and the (...) exemplarity of a work reveals how Ricoeur’s definition of mimesis as refiguration relates to the “rule” that the work summons. This “rule” constitutes the solution to a problem or question for which the work is the answer. In conclusion, as a model for thinking about testimony, the claims that works make have a counterpart in the injunctions that issue from exemplary moral and political acts.  . (shrink)

We can look at paintings, listen to music, dance, play instruments, and watch movies, on our own almost anytime, anywhere. That is, we have effortless, on-demand access to an abundance of private aesthetic experiences. Why, then, do we seek out aesthetic experiences together? Indeed, it is not controversial to claim that listening to music, dancing, and watching films are activities that we do together more so than we do on our own. While the significance of interpersonal (...) aesthetic experiences, and what explains that significance, is not uncharted territory, I claim that more precision regarding the kinds of relations and interactions that modulate and enable different kinds of interpersonal aesthetic experiences is warranted than is offered in extant literature. As such, an enactive approach that not only foregrounds embodiment and intersubjectivity in cognition, but duly explains how variations in them cause variations in cognition, is paramount to my explanation. Here, then, I marshal three ‘varieties’ of interpersonal aesthetic experience that I term aggregative, synchronised, and shared aesthetic experiences. In doing so, I explain what makes them particularly worthwhile, while introducing terminological and explanatory clarity to the literature as a unifying base from which future research can unfold. (shrink)

Is aesthetics a product of evolution? Are human aesthetic behaviors in fact evolutionary adaptations? The creation of artistic objects and experiences is an important aesthetic behavior. But so is the perception of aesthetic phenomena qua aesthetic. The question of evolutionary aesthetics is whether humans have evolved the capacity not only to make beautiful things but also to appreciate the aesthetic qualities in things. Are our near-universal love of music and cute baby animals essential to (...) our species’ evolutionary development, which took place over thousands of years? In other words, do aesthetic practice and appreciation help people to survive or reproduce? Do aesthetic behaviors help to propel natural selection? If so, what does that tell us about ourselves as human beings? What does it tell us about art, our other aesthetic practices, and aesthetic experience? (shrink)

What is it to experience the sardonic quality of Mingus' music, the nostalgia of a street-scene, the evanescence of a light installation, or the flowingness of Virginia Woolf's prose? Aesthetic experiences make artworks what they are for us--expressive, enlightening, enjoyable. They ground aesthetic value. How can we best account for them? ;The traditional view of aesthetic perception describes a mode of disinterested contemplation, free from the cognitive and utilitarian strictures conditioning ordinary awareness. Philosophers have challenged (...) this view on analytical, marxist, feminist, pragmatist, and postmodernist grounds. Through interrelation and contextualization requirements, aestheticians have attempted to salvage the notion of an aesthetically appropriate mode of appreciation . But the nature of this kind of appreciation depends on the nature of the small-scale experiential states that form its substance, namely, the experiences of aesthetic properties. ;These experiences are peculiar. Conceptually complexer than pure sensations, and phenomenally richer than sheer imaginings and cognitions, aesthetic experiences exhibit significant parallels and differences with other states of mind. They display a rocky distribution over various sense modalities, a selective sensitivity to contextual factors, and a striking interconnectedness among themselves. Current analyses in terms of cognition, imagination, metaphorical understanding, nonaesthetic sensation, and counterfactual perception have trouble accommodating their coherence and stability. With the assistence of theoretical work on categorization, perception, and qualia , I propose to locate a more fine-grained attitude at the basis of aesthetic experience, involving perceptually driven conceptualizations, arising through processes of progressive phenomenal differentiation. I substantiate this proposal by considering a number of pertinent phenomena in aesthetics, namely the role of imaginings in pictorial and musical perception; the function of artistic categories, and the experience of seeing objects in depictions. ;This view, call it the conceptualizations view, allows us to identify the distinctive artistic functioning of aesthetic experience--its role as an intermediary between different domains of artistic meaning--while respecting its variety and its relations with other forms of mentation. Thus we can clarify its formative role within the aesthetic sphere at large, and, most importantly, its connection with value. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Husserlian notion of “passive synthesis” can make a substantial contribution to the understanding of aesthetic experience. The argument is based on two empirical cases of qualitative interview material obtained from museum visitors and a world-renowned string quartet, which show that aesthetic experience contains an irreducible dimension of passive undergoing and surprise. Analyzing this material through the lens of passive syntheses helps explain these experiences, as well as the sense of subject–object fusion (...) that occurs in some of the most intense forms of aesthetic experience. These analyses are then contrasted with a potentially contradicting take on aesthetic experience from a recent trend in cognitive science, namely enactive aesthetics, which insists on the active subjective construction and sense-making of aesthetic experience. Finally we show that the two positions are in fact compatible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aesthetic Experience and Education:Themes and QuestionsDeborah Kerdeman"Being with" music. Attentive responsiveness in teaching. Scholarly learning as engagement with beauty. Three evocative images of aesthetic experience come to light in the essays by Custodero, Hansen, and Neumann. From the musical play of children conducting imaginary orchestras to the vocational aspirations of adults who gaze through telescopes or study paintings at Chicago's Art Institute, aesthetic (...) experience spans a range of activities and ages. No matter the setting or moment, aesthetic experience vitalizes our lives with meaning and joy. Why this is so and what difference this makes for education emerge as overarching concerns in this set of papers. Addressing these issues, the authors articulate a number of commonthemes and reach similar conclusions about the nature and value of aesthetic experience.I want to identify and analyze key ideas that run throughout these essays. Doing so deepens our appreciation of the authors' insights and underscores the importance of the project they undertake. I also want to examine three questions that the essays suggest but do not develop. Exploring these questions, I hope to further enrich our understanding of aesthetic experience and its place in education.First and foremost, aesthetic experience for all three authors integrates multiple ways of knowing and enables individuals to perceive connections that they might otherwise overlook. According to Custodero, aesthetic experience harmonizes imagination, physicality, and "thinking-in-action." [End Page 88] Thinking-in-action, Custodero says, while "critical and consequential," is nonverbal and nonjudgmental — unifying rather than analytic. Synthesizing bodily movement, imagination, and thought, aesthetic experience reveals "surprise relationships between seemingly disparate phenomena." The theme of integration is echoed in Neumann's description of scholarly learning as aesthetic experience. Scholarly learning does not shun feeling or lived experience, Neumann writes. This way of knowing instead is "deeply emotional and personal." Insight fuses with emotion, enabling scholars to "feel the whole picture," as David the astronomer puts it in his interview with Neumann. For Hansen, aesthetic experience connotes heightened perception, a way of being that attends to nuances of gesture that would otherwise remain invisible. "The aesthetic highlights aspects of wonder and of beauty that emerge, spontaneously and unrehearsed," Hansen explains. A form of creativity, aesthetic perception combines with moral and intellectual understanding to fully embrace "the living dynamic gestalt" of teaching and learning.Aesthetic experience thus integrates mind, body, and emotion. Hansen links aesthetic experience to moral judgment as well. Integrating various ways of knowing, aesthetic experience enables individuals to perceive and understand relationships that pulse throughout the social and natural world. Such understanding is pleasurable, the authors agree.Aesthetic experience not only is integrative. It also is interactive. Custodero's musicians interact with instruments, musical scores, and other individuals. Neumann's scholars interact with ideas and scholarly materials. Hansen's preservice teachers interact with works of art, subject matter, students, and one another. Interacting with people and things, individuals become absorbed in what they are doing. "Being with" music is howCustodero puts it. Carmen, the professor of music in Neumann's essay, says that playing music well "is like a complete focus of oneness."Being absorbed in aesthetic interaction does not discount or dissolve the ability to make decisions or direct action. Aesthetic experience rather presumes and promotes "aesthetic agency," to borrow a phrase from Custodero. "To 'be in the moment,'" Custodero writes, "is to encounter the aesthetic — fully engaged in an activity for which one's individual contributions are perceived as vital." Hansen's description of aesthetic perception combines attentiveness and responsiveness in a "dynamic combination of patience, listening, and initiative." Neumann states that scholarly learning is an experience of "deep engrossment." Such engrossment does not extinguish the self, however. In the words of David the astronomer, feeling "the whole picture... is a combination of both what you see, sort of an instinctive or primal thing, and also your knowledge of what, you know, you put together." [End Page 89]The interactive nature of aesthetic experience thus signifies a kind of "agency-in-situ." Aesthetic experience is shaped or directed by the contribution and initiative of individuals. But individuals cannot act in advance of experience or know what to do, unless they are... (shrink)

In a letter to Czerny about teaching his nephew to play the fortepiano, Beethoven indicates that mistakes on notes are ‘minor mistakes.’ At the same time, problems like ignoring dynamic marks are ‘much more serious’ (Gerig 2007: 95). What could ground his insistence on following the dynamic marks on the score? The normativity of the score-following rule as an aesthetic rule is at stake here. In this paper, I raise concerns about the Practice-Based view, which, as I shall argue, (...) grounds the score-following rule in the same way as the rules of chess are grounded. As an alternative approach, I propose that the Genuine Performing Experience grounds the normativity of the score-following rule. My proposal not only offers a novel explanation of the normativity of the rule but also explains the meaningfulness of score compliance in classical music performance by highlighting its unique significance among other human practices. (shrink)

Aesthetic experience as a determining factor in music appreciation has lost salience in recent years, especially in philosophy of music education. Markand Thakar, music director of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and co-director of graduate conducting at Peabody Conservatory, has written a book subtitled An Investigation into Musical Beauty. In a series of dialogues between a talented music student and a wise professor, he equates beauty with the aesthetic (...) class='Hi'>experience and cites this as the hallmark of masterpieces in Western music of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. The author reviews Thakar’s book, notes similarities and differences with Bennett Reimer’s philosophy, and defends the theory against the mandates of praxialism. (shrink)

In ‘Listening to Music Together’, Nick Zangwill offers three arguments which aim to establish that listening to music can never be a joint activity. If any of these arguments were sound, then our experiences of music, qua object of aesthetic attention, would be essentially private. In this paper, I argue that Zangwill’s arguments are unsound and I develop an account of shared musical experience that defends three main conclusions. First, joint listening is not merely possible (...) but a common feature of our socially situated experiences of music. Second, when listening with others our experience of the music and our sense of community with our fellow listeners often reciprocally enhance one another. Third, how deeply and intimately we share a musical experience with others depends upon such factors as our respective backgrounds, interests, and levels of expertise. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: I platonic ideas and aesthetic experience II artistic genius and the communication theory of art III the hierarchy of the visual and verbal arts IV tragedy and sublimity V music and metaphysical experience Notes Further Reading.

Despite the very obvious differences between looking at Manet’s _Woman with a Parrot_ and listening to Elgar’s Cello Concerto, both experiences provoke similar questions in the thoughtful aesthete: why does the painting seem to express reverie and the music, nostalgia? How do we experience the reverie and nostalgia in such works of art? Why do we find these experiences rewarding in similar ways? As our awareness of emotion in art, and our engagement with art’s emotions, can make such (...) a special contribution to our life, it is timely for a philosopher to seek to account for the nature and significance of the experience of art’s emotions. Damien Freeman develops a new theory of emotion that is suitable for resolving key questions in aesthetics. He then reviews and evaluates three existing approaches to artistic expression, and proposes a new approach to the emotional experience of art that draws on the strengths of the existing approaches. Finally, he seeks to establish the ethical significance of this emotional experience of art for human flourishing. Freeman challenges the reader not only to consider how art engages with emotion, but how we should connect up our answers to questions concerning the nature and value of the experiences offered by works of art. (shrink)

Abstract:In speaking of his analyses, George Herbert Mead (1863– 1931) announces: “It is behavioristic where the approach to experience is made through conduct.” He turns this approach to the practice of the arts and the aesthetic experience. His approach consists of an analysis of gestures and attitudes as the beginning of acts that we bring with us to the activities in which we are engaged. A gesture would be, for example, offering someone a chair who has entered (...) a room. Usually gestures and their responses form a conversation, in this case, acceptance or rejection of the offer. The attitude behind the offer would be generosity and friendliness—a sign of welcome. Within music, “a temporal dimension as that of the melody, or recognition of the notes and their distance from each other in the scale, and our appreciation of these as actually affected by the beginning of our response to the later notes, as when we are expecting a certain sort of ending.... It is that attitude that gives the character of our appreciation of all extended musical compositions.” Instead of the part–whole understanding of the arts, he argues for a whole–part relationship within a social context of the actions that make up a performance or object. How far will this thesis take us? I explore answers to this question. (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)

It has been claimed by Diana Raffman, that atonal (and in particular serial) music can have no aesthetic value, because it is in an important sense meaningless. This worthlessness is claimed to result from cognitive/psychological facts about human listeners that have been confirmed by empirical investigations such as those conducted by Lerdahl and Jackendoff. Similar assertions about the necessary inferiority of 12-tone music have been made by, among others, Taruskin, Cavell, and Goldman, some of whom echo Raffman’s (...) suggestion that both composers and performers of atonal music are committing a kind of fraud. This paper responds to all of those allegations. In particular, it points out that even if the empirical claim about human cognitive capacities with respect to the discernment of “local structure” in atonal works is assumed to be correct (which is actually quite doubtful), all the arguments brought by the “prosecution” against atonal music that rely on this claim are invalid. It is noted that such arguments by tonality advocates somewhat ironically rely on their own variety of what Taruskin has called “the poietic fallacy,” a gaff which he has frequently accused serialists (and perhaps alea supporters) of committing. Readers are reminded that the main basis for claims of aesthetic worth (or worthlessness) can never be primarily theoretical, but must be principally based on the experiences of beholders. (shrink)

The work begins by asking the questions of how contemporary phenomenology is concerned with music, and how phenomenological descriptions of music and musical experiences are helpful in grasping the concreteness of these experiences. I then proceed with minor findings from phenomenological authorities, who seem to somehow need music to explain their phenomenology. From Maurice Merleau-Ponty to Jean-Luc Nancy and back to Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, there are musical findings to be asserted. I propose to look at (...) phenomenological studies of the musical aspects of existence as they appear in various philosophical works bringing together different accounts of music and aesthetics and pointing towards phenomenological study as a methodology for everyday aesthetics. While there are many different areas of music phenomenology such as studies of sound and listening, studies in perception of musical works, in experience of artistic creation, in singing and playing musical instruments, and phenomenology of transcendent or religious horizons of the experience of music, it is most promising—I suggest—to look at phenomenological studies of music from the perspective of everyday happenings and discoveries of musical aspects of life. Thus, I attempt to display the uses of phenomenology in finding musical aspects of everyday existence as well as in describing and illuminating the art of music. A look at Roman Ingarden’s and Mikel Dufrenne’s most intuitive and promising ideas will be broadened with a perspective from Don Ihde and Arnold Berleant. (shrink)

Truth happens to an idea." So wrote William James in 1907; and twenty-four years later John Dewey argued that artistic experience entailed a process of "doing and undergoing." But what do these ideas have to do with music, or with research conducted in and through music - that is, with "artistic research?" In this collection of essays, fourteen very different authors respond with distinct and challenging perspectives. Some report on their own experiments and experiences; some offer probing (...) analyses of noteworthy practices; some view historical continuities through the lens of pragmatism and artistic experiment. The resulting collection yields new insights into what musicians do, how they experiment, and what they experience - insights that arise not from doctrine, but from diverse voices seeking common ground in and through experimental discourse: artistic research in and of itself. (shrink)

In the Essai sur Vorigine des langues (), Jean-Jacques Rousseau reports on an eighteenth-century curiosity that has, from time to time, fascinated musicians ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 11.2 (2003) 112-129 [Access article in PDF] Musical Aphorisms and Common Aesthetic Quandaries Yaroslav Senyshyn Simon Fraser University, Canada I have written in the style of aphorisms because their form is useful for both the sake of brevity and possible complexity. As well, they are historically significant as they have served many philosophers in the past and in our own time. Some (...) will argue that they do not say enough, but this is unfounded as in saying less there is often scope for more. Who knows perhaps academe will experiment with this mode of writing more frequently?For the sake of a sense of direction, I will borrow Russell Nieli's title to his thoughtful book on Wittgenstein's philosophy, From Mysticism to Ordinary Language, 1 to characterize the procedure of these aphorisms. Thus my initial aphorisms begin with music as a thing-in-itself, a striving toward a Kantian noumenon 2 and move toward the everyday practical concerns of music education. There are no determinate limits to a philosophy of music; unfortunately, this is also true of confusion. The following aphorisms (while hardly exhaustive of any possible gamut of music philosophy) strive to demystify some of the more common aesthetic quandaries and hopefully provide an opportunity for a wider field of discussion in music philosophy and education. [End Page 112] Music: External and Internal Inferences Sound and silence as potentiation of music precedes human existence.If music precedes existence then it can never be defined in absolute terms of thought. It remains thus even if nothingness were an all-pervasive, encompassing silence (that is, the silence of music or music as silence). 3 Silence as music in our culture may be perceived to be music by some and not necessarily by all cultures. As the sound and silence that preceded our being, it is indeed music in everlasting potentiation.In this sense sound can only be philosophically inferred as the "other," outside music, which the pre-Socratic philosophers referred to mystically and metaphorically as "the music of the spheres"; it is that music outside of us and finds its origins in sounds indirectly related to us. 4 It is what I prefer to call the Sound and Silence that define and are defined by each other in their potentiation for music. Thus this sound is music as potential or dynamis if intended to be music and perceived as such. It is also the possible music or sounds of the environment and non-humans such as whales, elephants, and monkeys. But the latter is our perception of their "music" and not necessarily their own appropriation. In the former we can use or intend the sounds of the environment to be music if these are perceived as such by at least one other person.Thus all sound is music in potentiation.The notion of a possible pre-existence of music, as stated in the first aphorism, is then defined by music as both a source and external entity.As an external inference (that is, the possibility of such) music does not communicate with us; rather, we utilize it through our own means and culture to communicate by it indirectly. It becomes our social construct and thus not an absolute notion.This source of music can be verified as it is implicit in our respective societies and world cultures.A music which possibly or inferentially precedes existence is, of necessity, part of that possible catalyst of sound waves identified by modern-day physics by which the universe may have been formed. For this reason, such notions usually appropriated by world mythologies have made it possible to worship music, perceive it as a supernatural force, or even view it is a possible cause in the big bang theory. 5Music is embodied in experience in that it is appropriated by members of extant cultures for its own particular use. We can speak of music from within our personal experiences of it. But this can only be appropriated or understood properly by others when our description of it accords with that cultural... (shrink)

Transdisciplinary and intermedial analysis of the experience of music. Nowadays musical semiotics no longer ignores the fundamental challenges raised by cognitive sciences, ethology, or linguistics. Creation, action and experience play an increasing role in how we understand music, a sounding structure impinging upon our body, our mind, and the world we live in. Not discarding music as a closed system, an integral experience of music demands a transdisciplinary dialogue with other domains as well. (...) Music, Analysis, Experience brings together contributions by semioticians, performers, and scholars from cognitive sciences, philosophy, and cultural studies, and deals with these fundamental questionings. Transdisciplinary and intermedial approaches to music meet musicologically oriented contributions to classical music, pop music, South American song, opera, narratology, and philosophy. (shrink)

How do our embodied experiences of music shape our analysis, theorizing, and interpretation of musical texts, and our engagement with practices including composing, improvising, listening, and performing? 'Music, Analysis, and the Body: Experiments, Explorations, and Embodiments' is a pioneering essay collection uniting major and emerging scholars to consider how theory and analysis address music's literal and figurative bodies. The essayists offer critical overviews of different theoretical approaches to music analysis and embodiment, then test and demonstrate their (...) ideas in specific repertoires. The range of musics analysed is diverse: Western art music sits alongside non-Western repertoires, folk songs, jazz, sound art, audio-visual improvisations, soundtracks, sing-alongs, live events, popular songs, and the musical analysis of non-musical experiences. Topics examined include affect, agency, energetics, feel, gesture, metaphor, mimesis, rehearsal, subjectivity, and the objects of music analysis--as well as acoustic ecology, alterity, class, distraction, excess, political authority, sensoriality, technology, and transcendence. (shrink)

Roger Scruton's extraordinarily rich and impressive book The Aesthetics of Music has not received the attention it deserves. In this paper I take issue with one of its most striking claims, namely that the basic perceptions of music are informed by spatial concepts understood metaphorically. To evaluate this claim it is necessary to grasp Scruton's theory of metaphor, which has largely been neglected. I sketch his theory and derive from it the essence of his claim about the fundamental (...) role of spatial metaphors in musical experience. With the issue clarified in this way, I attempt to show that the claim is not plausible. (shrink)

Aesthetics: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments is a teaching-focused resource, which highlights the contributions that imaginative scenarios—paradoxes, puzzles, and thought experiments alike—have made to the development of contemporary analytic aesthetics. The book is divided into sections pertaining to art-making, ontology, aesthetic judgements, appreciation and interpretation, and ethics and value, and offers an accessible summary of ten debates falling under each section. -/- Each entry also features a detailed annotated bibliography, making it an ideal companion for courses surveying a (...) broad collection of topics and readings in aesthetics. (shrink)

Bien que le rôle dans l’expérience esthétique des kinesthèses remontant au cycle action-perception du processus de création artistique soit reconnu par la théorie neurocognitive de l’esthétique, on n’a pas encore dissocié les contributions respectives des sensations corporelles et de la simulation interne, deux dimensions distinguées par T. Lipps. Pour désambiguer la part de l’empathie kinesthésique dans l’expérience esthétique de la musique, on a comparé les enregistrements des micro-gestes d’exécution de musiciens avec leur compte-rendu de l’expressivité musicale éprouvée lors de l’observation (...) et de l’exécution de morceaux de musique. (shrink)

‘다중양상성’은 다양한 맥락에서 상이한 의미로 이해된다. 이 글에서 ‘다중양상성’은 음악의 미적 경험에서 지각과 의식이 신경 토대 연결망을 통해 인지적으로 동기화(synchronization)되는 방식을 가리킨다. 이 과정을 도식적으로 말하면, 우선 시각, 청각, 촉각 등 다양한 감각 자료들이 뇌의 피질 안에 분산된 전문 모듈들에 의해 신경적으로 처리‧저장된다. 심적 상태가 생물학적으로 저장되는 것이다. 이후 어떤 시점에서, 주체가 음악의 특수한 청각적 국면에 주목할 때 비청각적인 신경적 자료들은 활성화되어 중앙 의식에 합류한다. 즉 중앙 의식의 요구에 부응하여 생물학적 데이터가 심적 상태로 변환되고 현재화되며, 이에 따라 주체의 청각 경험은 (...) 상이한 지각 양상들과 앙상블을 이룬다. 이 단계에서 기억과 사고가 참여하여 주도적으로 서사적 해석을 구성할 수도 있으나 이것은 주체의 관심사에 달린 문제이다.BR 본 논의의 직접적인 초점은 음악에 있지만, 다중양상성 논제는 예술 일반에 확대 적용될 수 있다. 왜냐하면, 첫째로, 다중양상성 논제는 매체 지각의 다양성을 뜻하는 것이 아니라 예술 감상자가 작품 전체의 형식으로서 투사하는, 자기 표상적인 의식에 다름 아니기 때문이다. 둘째로, 예술 감상자가 미적 주목을 통해 가상적으로 투사하는 통합적인 작품 형식은 그가 현재 의식적으로 주목하는 작품의 지각적 면모들뿐만 아니라, 그 자료들을 추상하여 전체 형식으로 구성하는 과정에 개입하는 상이한 양태의 ‘지각 흔적’들과 개념적 사고틀이 산출하는 다중양상적 앙상블이기 때문이다. 이렇게 인지적으로 동기화된 앙상블을 가능하게 하는 것은 다름 아니라 의식 아래 차원에서 작동하는 다양한 지각 모듈들과 그것들을 연결해주는 비의식적인 신경 연결망이다. 따라서 비록 ‘신경미학’이 고차적 사고, 지향성, 예술사적 지식 등이 어떻게 예술 경험에 관여하는지를 직접 설명하기 어렵지만, 적어도 신경 토대가 어떻게 미적 경험의 대상인 자기 표상적 의식의 형성을 가능하게 하는지를 보여줄 수 있다. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the historical development of otology in relation to music. It illustrates the integral role of music perception and appreciation in the study of hearing, where hearing operates not simply as a scientific phenomenon but signifies particular meaningful experiences in society. The four historical moments considered—Helmholtz’s piano-keyed cochlea, the ear phonautograph, the hearing aid, and the cochlear implant—show how the sounds, perceptions, and instruments of music have mediated and continue to mediate our relationships with hearing. (...) To have an ear, one does not just bear a physiological hearing mechanism; one experiences the aesthetics of musical sound. (shrink)

This article describes a philosophy session with ten-year-old students centered around aesthetics, and in particular on questions about the meaning of music. The students explore the nature of music and art, including questions about what makes something music, artist intention, and the relation of art and the expression of emotion. The session involves a performance of John Cage’s work 4’ 33” and the way in which the performance can inspire a conversation with young people about philosophy of (...) music. The article depicts such a conversation in a fifth grade classroom. The students examine whether silence can be music, whether art must express emotion, and whether it is the external properties of a work or our experience of it that define it as music. Music is deeply important to most people, and yet it evokes some of the most challenging questions of aesthetics. Discussing these questions can serve to illustrate some of the ways in which philosophical enigmas lie behind many of our most ordinary experiences. The surprising experience of attending a performance of Cage’s work, combined with being outside of the classroom for a special event and the relevance of music in the students’ lives, create a powerful environment for philosophical inquiry. The students are able to grasp immediately the complex issues raised by the work, and the resulting search for meaning within the philosophical community of inquiry can be a transformative moment. (shrink)

Illustrations: Numerous Colour and 15 B/w Illustrations Description: The volumes of the PROJECT OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURE IN INDIAN CIVILIZATION aim to discover the central aspects of India's heritage and present them in an interrelated manner. In spite of their unitary look, these volumes recognize the difference between the areas of material civilization and those of ideational culture. The Project is not being executed by a single group of thinkers, methodologically uniform or ideologically identical in their commitments. (...) Rather, contributions are made by different scholars of diverse ideological persuasions and methodological approaches. The Project is marked by what may be called 'methodological pluralism'. In spite of its primarily historical character, this project, both in its conceptualization and execution, has been shaped by scholars drawn from different disciplines. It is the first time that an endeavour of such unique and comprehensive character has been undertaken to study critically a major world civilization. History of art, unlike that of science, is not an accumulation of facts. It comprises concurrences and overlappings cutting across the linearity of time. Based on this premise the essays in this volume delve into the discourse as also forms of creativity in the Indian tradition in terms of both the perennial and the ephemeral aspects of aesthetic experience. The essays form four groups dealing with (a) core concepts which permeate the discourse on aesthetic theories, and having ramifications in many other disciplines and domains; (b) The Rasa theory in the framework of classical philosophical traditions of Vedanta, Mimamsa, Samkhya, and Kashmir Saivism, and (c) the comprehension of the foundational concepts of aesthetic theory, namely, Rasa and Dhvani from the perspectives of Indian thought traditions addressing also music, dance and the visual arts. There is no clear-cut demarcation between the four groups of essays though in their own framework they illustrate a transition from the discourse (sastra) to practice (prayoga) i.e., from theorizing on the nature of aesthetic experience to the process of concretizing it into forms of music, dance, architecture, and painting. The contributions highlight the fact that the history of Indian aesthetic tradition comprises various textual and performing traditions that have flourished in the Indian subcontinent. What we have is not a single history but multiple histories based on various philosophical and methodological approaches adopted by art historians. Some of these histories pertain to the technical details of a given art form, and some with the changes that have occurred in the evolution and development these forms. While some historical accounts focus on the relevant biographical details of the artists, some art histories focus on the social, cultural, political, and even the economic conditions of civilization that determine the nature of an art form. Considering the multi-dimensional and multi-level complexities of Indian civilization and culture, the contributions to this volume have investigated into a number of factors which are directly and indirectly relevant for comprehending the complexities of the Indian aesthetic tradition. (shrink)

This article proceeds from a consideration of what John Baldacchino calls ‘viable ignorance’, attempting to take leave from the critical and pedagogical obligations of certain elements of Barbara Johnson's ‘positive ignorance’. It considers Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-François Lyotard and the composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen's reflections on modes of experience, and the cultivation of complementary dispositions, where the knowing, egocentric subject is transformed into, or undermined as, what Nietzsche calls ‘a medium of overpowering forces’. The disposition itself is outlined through close readings (...) of key elements of Nietzsche's notebooks, Lyotard's final chapter of Libidinal Economy (1993), and Stockhausen's lecture, ‘Intuitive Music’ (1971) and developed through supplemental practice-as-research activity in sound. The intention of this paper is to explore the space of aesthetic ignorance as committedly as possible, without reverting constantly to positive ignorance. (shrink)

This book explores how the immediate experience of musical sound relates to processes of meaning construction and discursive mediation. A unique multi-authored work that both draws on and contributes to current debates in ethnomusicology, musicology, psychology, and cognitive science, it presents a novel and productive view of how cultural practice relates to the experience and meaning of musical performance.

Performing and listening to music occurs in specific situations, requiring specific media. Empirical research on music listening and appreciation, however, tends to overlook the effects these situations and media may have on the listening experience. This article uses the sociological concept of the frame to develop a theory of an aesthetic experience with music as the result of encountering sound/music in the context of a specific situation. By presenting a transdisciplinary sub-field of empirical (...) (concert) studies, we unfold this theory for one such frame: the classical concert. After sketching out the underlying theoretical framework, a selective literature review is conducted to look for evidence on the general plausibility of the single elements of this emerging theory and to identify desiderata. We refer to common criticisms of the standard classical concert, and how new concert formats try to overcome alleged shortcomings and detrimental effects. Finally, an empirical research program is proposed, in which frames and frame components are experimentally manipulated and compared to establish their respective affordances and effects on the musical experience. Such a research program will provide empirical evidence to tackle a question that is still open to debate, i.e., whether the diversified world of modern-day music listening formats also holds a place for the classical concert – and if so, for what kind of classical concert. (shrink)

I: Environmental aesthetics -- A phenomenological aesthetics of environment -- Aesthetic dimensions of environmental design -- Down the garden path -- The wilderness city : a study of metaphorical experience -- Aesthetics of the coastal environment -- The world from the water -- Is there life in virtual space? -- Is greasy lake a place? -- Embodied music -- II: Social aesthetics -- The idea of a cultural aesthetic -- The social evaluation of art -- Subsidization (...) of art as social policy -- Morality and the artist : toward an ethics of art -- Getting along beautifully : ideas for a social aesthetics. (shrink)

Aesthetics is commonly considered a complicated field of inquiry, particularly for students. Nevertheless, aesthetic experiences often raise questions about the nature of music which philosophical aesthetics is intended to answer. To bring students in contact with aesthetics depends primarily on the choice of appropriate methods. Case studies exemplify aesthetic theory in a small story. They can engage students in aesthetic inquiry directly related to students' musical world. Case studies also offer further applications to music education (...) in terms of performing, improvising, or giving pre-concert lectures. Music education could use the opportunities which aesthetics offers in order to enhance making music and aesthetic experiences. (shrink)

Roger Scruton’s account of the nature of music and our experience of it foregrounds the imagination. It is a particularly interesting and promising ‘non-realist’ view in the aesthetics of music, in the sense that it does not postulate aesthetic properties of music that we represent in musical experience. In this paper I critically examine both Scruton’s view and his main argument for it.

Wittgenstein’s thinking on music is intimately linked to core issues in his work on the philosophy of psychology. I argue that inasmuch musical experience exemplifies the kind of grammatical complexity that is indigenous to aspect perception and, in general, to concepts that are based on physiognomy, it is rendered by Wittgenstein as a form of knowledge, namely, knowledge of mankind.

In his Aesthetics Hegel gives full expression to his seminal theory of art. He surveys the history of art from ancient India, Egypt, and Greece through to the Romantic movement of his own time, criticizes major works, and probes their meaning and significance; his rich array of examples gives broad scope for his judgement and makes vivid his exposition of his theory. The substantial Introduction is Hegel's best exposition of his general philosophy of art, and provides the ideal way into (...) his Aesthetics. In Part I he considers the general nature of art: he distinguishes art, as a spiritual experience, from religion and philosophy; he discusses the beauty of art and differentiates it from the beauty of nature; and he examines artistic genius and originality. Part II provides a sort of history of art, divded into three periods called Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic. Part III deals individually with architecture, scuplture, painting, music, and literature. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIneffability of musical meaning is a frequent theme in music philosophy. However, talk about musical meaning persists and seems to be not only inherently enjoyable and socially acceptable, but also functionally useful. Relying on a phenomenological account of musical meaning combined with a naturalist explanatory attitude, we argue for a novel explanation of how ineffability is a feature of musical meaning and experience and we show why it cannot be remedied by perfecting language or musico-philosophical study.Musical meaning is (...) seen as an experiential phenomenon that consists of layers, some recent, others archaic. As such, musical meaning is strongly characterized by asubjectivity. It is in-between, in a state where the division of subject and object is not yet valid or valid anymore. A naturalistic interplay of experiential layers in music brings about a non-reified dynamics driving for expressions, interpretations, engenderings of subjects and objects or even for political action. Generally speaking, the in-betweenness of musical meaning can never be universally reified or symbolic nor can it ever be “subjective,” “mine” or present “at the origin.”In this view, ineffability has two primary reasons. First, the criteria offered for defining musical meaning are often too strict, resulting in untenable pretensions of universality. Second, the processual and relational nature of the in-between keeps meaning in flux; any snapshot creates a new situation and new meanings. (shrink)

In Absolute Music: The History of an Idea, Mark Evan Bonds presents a magisterial history of absolute music—a term Richard Wagner first coined in 1846, and yet which Bonds believes existed as an ‘idea’ going all the way back to Ancient Greece. Drawing primarily on the work of new musicologists in the United States in the 1980s as his point of departure, Bonds defines absolute music as a ‘regulative concept’ that allows him to discuss the ‘relationship between (...) music’s perceived essence and its effect’.1 1 The ‘essence-effect’ binarism provides a unique angle for his history, yet also locks his discussion into a conceptual framework that leads to either/or conclusions about absolute music’s moral, social, and aesthetic value. (shrink)

Aesthetic communities offer us opportunities for collective, communal, and value-disclosing shared aesthetic experiences. This paper develops an account of shared aesthetic experiences and provides an answer to the question of their significance: when they occur within aesthetic communities, their distinctive phenomenology is a powerful resource for creating a sense that our lives are aesthetically meaningful.

Published under the auspices of The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, 19 essays document the April 1998 international congress held at Harvard University. They ponder on such topics as the phenomenology of the experience of enchantment, Leonardo's enchantress, the ambiguous meaning of musical enchantment in Kant's Third Critique, art and the reenchantment of sensuous human activity, the creative voice, the allure of the Naza, Henri Matisse's early critical reception in New York, Zizek's sublimicist aesthetic of (...) enchanted fantasy, and enchantment in Baroque festive court performance in France. There is no subject index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

Although there are distinctly American artists-Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Grandma Moses, Thomas Hart Benton, and Andy Warhol, for example-very little attention has been devoted to formulating any distinctively American characteristics of aesthetic judgment and practice. This volume takes a step in this direction, presenting an introductory essay on the possibility of such a distinctly American tradition, and a collection of essays exploring particular examples from a variety of angles. Some of the essays in this collection extend pragmatist and process (...) insights about the important place aesthetics has in molding and assessing experience. Other essays examine the place of American aesthetics in relation to such particular forms of art as painting, literature, music, and film. Three essays attend to the aesthetic aspects of a flourishing life. In each of the essays, American aesthetics is understood to arise out of deeply felt personal, historical, and cultural backgrounds. Consequently, not only are such relatively abstract notions as harmony, fit, elegance, proportion, and the like involved in aesthetic judgment, but also religious, political, and social factors become embroiled in aesthetic discernment. Thus the ongoing pattern of American aesthetics is shown to be distinguishable from such other varieties of aesthetic thought as analytic aesthetics, New Criticism, and postmodern approaches to aesthetics. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Aesthetic Experience The enjoyment Of art is ordinarily looked upon as some thing detached from the serious business of life, as an episode in an existence otherwise fundamentally non-aesthetic. Art is conceived as shut up in books, concert-halls, and museums; as, perhaps, a legitimate preoccupation on a trip to Europe; but under ordinary circumstances a relaxation, and if more than that, a distraction or even a dissipation. For a few individuals, writers, musicians, or painters, (...) it is more than a by-play or avocation; but for the mass Of men concern with it is an interlude, and its production is of course out of the question. In this it resembles religion. TO go to a museum and to go to church alike involve a break with our usual habits. Both are expeditions into worlds other than that in, which our every-day Occupations go on. And both worlds are suspect from the point of view of the habitual dweller in the real world. The man who attempts to treat the pre cepts Of religion as applicable to his business or personal relations is as little to be considered fully sane as the man whose life centres about art: both are at least likely to be queer. A book which is thought Of as a work Of art is presumably to be read from a sense of duty, and in a frame of mind both self-conscious and self-congratulatory - a frame Of mind, at any rate, quite different from that of Simple straightforwardness with which we approach the merely enjoyable. 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)

Philosophers on Music: Experience, Meaning, and Work presents significant new contributions to central issues in the philosophy of music, written by leading philosophers working in the analytic tradition. The issues tackled include: the question of what sort of thing a work of music is; the nature of the relation between a musical work and versions of it; the nature of musical expression and its contribution to musical experience; the relation of music to metaphor; the (...) nature of musical irony; the musical status of electro-sonic art; and the nature of musical rhythm. Aestheticians, musicologists, music practitioners, and those interested in philosophy generally will find the papers in this volume rewarding reading. (shrink)