Bowman, Wayne D. : Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada
Summary
This accessible introduction to the issues and problems of music philosophy explores various accounts of what
counts as music, how music works, and what music is good for. Designed to introduce musicians without philosophical
backgrounds to the vitality of music philosophical discourse, it surveys diverse perspectives on the nature and
value of music extending from the pre-Socratic Greeks to contemporary critiques.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Music and Philosophy
Aims and Assumptions
Characteristic Concerns of Philosophical Discourse
The Value of Music Philosophy to the Musician
Music from Divergent Perspectives
Perspectivism Versus the God's-eye View
2. Music as Imitation
Appearance and Reality, Deception and Truth: Plato's Music Philosophy
The Continuing Greek Legacy: Aristotle
Neoplatonic Elaborations
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
4. Music as Autonomous Form
Ancient Precursors: Aristoxenus, Phildemus, Sextus
Hanslick: Tonally Moving Forms
Gurney: The Power of Sound
Leonard B. Myer: Expectation, Emotion, and Musical Meaning
5. Music as Symbol
Langer: Conceiving the Patterns of Sentience
Goodman: Music and World Making
Nattiez: Signs, Reference, and Infinite Musical Interpretants
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
7. Music as Social and Political Force
Adorno: The Critical Social Function of Music
Attali: The Political Economy of Music
8. Contemporary Pluralist Perspectives
Feminist Perspectives
Music from Feminist Perspectives
The Postmodern Ethos
