Music and Humanism: An Essay in the Aesthetics of Music

by R. A. Sharpe

Overview

Robert Sharpe examines the humanist conception of music as a language—as expressive and intelligible—which has been a dominant theory in Western culture. He argues against the view that music is expressive by causing certain states in us. Rather, he contends that our beliefs about music are integral to our appreciation of it. Differences in musical taste are then not just irresolvable differences in sensitivity, but the result of variations in circumstance and upbringing, of associations and ideology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198238850
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/10/2000
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

University of Wales, Lampeter (Emeritus)

Table of Contents

PART I: NATURALIZING MUSIC; 1. Naturalizing Music; 2. Language and metaphor, emotions and mood; 3. Music, rhetoric, and oratory; PART II: PLAYING OFF OLD SCORES; 4. The motivations for musical ontology: a German ideology; 5. Performance; 6. Music's ruling myths; PART III: HUMANISM FOUNDERS; 7. Humanism founders? Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"R. A. is a seasoned philosopher who has long written about aesthetic issues in music. Music and Humanism is one of the latest in a distinguished recent line of philosophical writings on music published by Oxford University Press...It is a compact, contentious, sophisticatedly personal, and worthwhile book that shows considerable maturity and judgement. Professor Sharpe knows his music and knows it well...A valuable feature is the extensive range of music either mentioned or quoted... His book... has many fine attributes: the 'externals' are right and promise a penetrating discussion likely to appeal both to philosophers and to members of the musical profession, if not more widely...Sharpe has become a trendsetter in that his book, perhaps for the first time, runs something new alongside the traditional absolute music versus ideology debate"—Music & Letters

"The Author's apparent familiarity with a vast number of publications on the subject is overwhelming, his acquaintance with the repertoire is impressive."—The Review of Metaphysics

From the Publisher