Philosophical Perspectives on Music

Designed to introduce music students and musicians to the vitality of music philosophical discourse, Philosophical Perspectives on Music explores diverse accounts of the nature and value of music. It offers an accessible, even-handed consideration of philosophical orientations without advocating any single one, demonstrating that there are a number of ways in which music may reasonably be understood. This unique approach examines the strengths and advantages of each perspective as well as its inevitable shortcomings.

From the pre-Socratic Greeks to idealism, through phenomenology, and on to contemporary socio-cultural critiques, this wide-ranging survey examines the views of selected influential thinkers in sufficient detail to permit their voices to be personally and meaningfully experienced. Striving to portray philosophy as an intriguing dialogue rather than a dogmatic source of definitive answers, it invites readers to become full participants in an ongoing process of philosophical debate with vital contemporary relevance and extensive practical significance. Examining what music is, how it works, and what music is good for, this book encourages musicians to join in important conversations that shape both the ways they practice their art and the ways in which they and others understand it.

CONTENIDO

1. Music and philosophy
-Aims and assumptions
-Characteristic concerns of philosophical discourse
-The value of music philosophy of the musician
-Music from divergent perspectives
-Discussion questions

2. Music as imitation
-Appearance and reality, deception and truth: Plato's music philosophy
-The continuing Greek legacy: Aristotle
-Neoplatonic elaborations
-Concluding remarks
-Discussion questions

3. Music as idea
-Rationalism and empiricism
-Kant: "Aesthetic" experience, beauty, and taste
-Schiller: "Aesthetic" education
-Hegel: The ascent toward absolute idea
-Schopenhauer: Lifting the rational veil
-Concluding remarks
-Discussion questions

4. Music as autonomous form
-Ancient precursors: Aristoxenus, Philodemus, Sextus
-Hanslick: Tonally moving form
-Gurney: The power of sound
-Leonard B. Meyer: Expectation, emotion and musical meaning
-Concluding remarks
-Discussion questions

5. Music as symbol
-Langer: Conceiving the patterns of sentience
-Goodman: Music and world making
-Nattiez: Signs, reference, and infinite musical interpretants
-Concluding remarks
-Discussion questions

6. Music as experienced
-Phenomenology: Origins and assumptions
-Merleau-Ponty: The bodily basis of knowing and being
-Dufrenne: The musical "quasi-subject"
-Clifton: The geometry of musical experience
-Burrows: Sonorously experiencing the world
-Stubley: The transformative power of musical performance
-Music as embodied experience: The body in the mind
-Concluding remarks
-Discussion questions

7. Music as social and political force
-Adorno: The critical social function of music
-Attali: The political economy of music
-Concluding remarks
-Discussion questions

8. Contemporary pluralist perspectives
-Feminist perspectives
-Music from feminist perspectives
-The postmodern ethos
-Concluding remarks
-Discussion questions

Notes
Bibliography
Subject index
Name index