Music, Philosophy, and Modernity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4158160 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gerhard Dammann (University of London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 459-461 |
| Publication date | 2008-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Aesthetics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0904 • E-ISSN: 1468-2842 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/aesthj/ayn036 |
| OpenAlex | W2023228475 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
MUSIC has long puzzled philosophers. According to Andrew Bowie, the puzzle relates to some of philosophy's weightiest and most valuable considerations, from the concept of truth to the phenomenon of human value. It is these considerations, seen under the intellectual light that music sheds on them, that are his chief subject in Music, Philosophy, and Modernity. As Bowie makes clear, however, the value that the consideration of music brings to philosophy lies not primarily in any attempt to solve music's ‘problem’, but in the effort to return the puzzlement with which musical significance manifests itself in the mind to the spirit of philosophy. Regarding the philosophy of music, ‘not as the philosophy whose job is conceptually to determine the object “music”, but rather as the philosophy that emerges from music’ (p. 11), Bowie argues that we should take our philosophical cue from the fact that we do experience music as significant and expressive, and not from its failure to conform to models of signification and emotional expression the precise nature of which is in any case seldom the object of general agreement. As Bowie puts it, ‘[m]usic's meaning might lie precisely in the fact that we cannot say in words what it means – why does music exist at all if what it “says” could be said just as well in other ways?’ (p. 3
Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Meaning (existential · Modernity · Music history · Musical · Musicality · Object (grammar · Philosophy of music · Subject (documents · Value (mathematics · Western philosophy · Computer Science · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.15 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2020 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |