MUSIC PHILOSOPHY TERMS

MUSIC PHILOSOPHY TERMS

Below is a very abbreviated list of terms that pertain to music philosophy and philosophy in general.  Christian musicians need to be aware of the meaning of these terms because they appear in philosophical writings.  This abbreviate list is only a “drop in the bucket” but they are the ones that come to mind this morning. 

Aesthetics (esthetics)—the theory of beauty.

Arousal Theory—is the belief that music arouses in us feelings of emotion.

Autonomous Freedom – freedom that is without restraint.

Autonomous Philosophy – a philosophy that is separated from the revelation of Scripture.

Byzantine Philosophical Thought – These philosophers and theologians believed that heavenly things were “all important” to the exclusion of the natural world.

Determinism – the theory that human actions are controlled by antecedent (preceding) causes and not by the exercise of free will.

Enhanced Formalism—the theory that emotions are moved from the hearer to the music itself.  These emotions are not felt but cognized.  This view is sometimes referred to as emotive cognitivism.  This view purports that we are not emotionally moved by music.

Emotive Properties of Music—those properties of music that excite emotion or recall the memory of emotion.

Epistemology—the theory of knowledge and “knowing”.

 “Garden Variety of Emotions”—a phrase often used by the music philosopher Peter Kivy such as: melancholy, anger, fear, joy, etc. These are emotions that some philosophers (not kivy) believe are aroused in us.

Intrinsic Noumenon – pure thought not connected with sense perception.  Also, (in Kantian philosophy) a thing as it is in itself, as distinct from a thing as it is knowable by the senses through phenomenal attributes.

Isolated Disciplines – the study of knowledge in unrelated parallel lines. The study of philosophy not recognizing the necessary associations between all disciplines.

Metaphysics— a general speculative worldview which is a systematic account of all reality and experience.

Natural Theology -- a theology that could be pursued independently of the Bible.

Nature—the nature of music is the essence or quality or qualities that make music what it is.

Neo-Platonism – reviving Plato’s philosophy in a transformed manner.  Its central doctrines are emanation (the belief that the human spirit can participate in the divine) and the belief in the transcendent One which is beyond all knowledge and all being.

Ontology—the area of metaphysics that deals with the essence of being.

Persona Theory—is the belief that we hear a music performance as a human utterance.

Phenomenal – something recognized by or experienced by the senses rather than through thought or intuition.

Pluralism—the notion that reality is composed of more than one or two kinds of being.

Praxis— a Greek term meaning practice which represents an action based  philosophy of music education that stresses deliberate thinking and deliberate “doing”.

Rationalism – all knowledge and truth consist in what is ascertainable by rational processes of thought and that there is no supernatural revelation. It is the the doctrine that true and absolute knowledge is found only in reason.

Rationality- of or relation to reason based on and in accordance with reason or reasoning.

Value – usefulness or worth preserving. Inherent (existing as a permanent characteristic or quality), an essential (necessary i.e., one cannot do without it) value.