Philosophy and music

Philosophy- Music

Kant- French Revolution -1790

Napoleon in India and Egypt- 1800

Hegel- The phenomenology of mind -1809

Schopenhauer- 1818- The world as will and representation

-       The Reaction- 1820s/1830s religious revival/ romanticism

-       Marx 1848- revolution and reaction (Prussia and Czarist Russia)

-       Darwin 1859-Origin of the species

-       Nietzsche- professor of philology 1869- Basel Uni

-       Music and religion- musical rivals – stone age- Buddhism, chanting, importance

-       Nietzsche 1^st book- Philosophical significance of music- ‘The Birth of Tragedy’ in the spirit of music

-       Pythagorean ism and the music of spheres- mathematical harmony. This theory suggests that music was being written mathematically. Music notes are in pure mathematical ratios. The sound is in proportion and people during the enlightenment years worked this out.

-       Nietzsche was against Schopenhauer’s Buddhist resignation. ‘We must love our critics because they show us our weaknesses’ Life entails ‘will’ you need to overcome this and not deny it. The situation must be madly passionate for you to ever consider denying it. You must be able to over come yourself at least 10 times a day. The general view is that ‘greed is good’.

-       Wagner and opera (Beethoven and Shakespeare= Wagner

-       Ecstasy was viewed as a sexual orgasm such as in Tristan and Isolde where she died because her sexual orgasm was so big. It was believed that listening to music from Wagner can give you that orgasm. Wagner had an opera built for his music before the times of the cinema. It was however on a dark and cinematic scale. Nietzsche fell out with Wagner and many other people due to his over-redemptive themes. ‘Contra Nietzsche’ was his book about Nazi Wagner.

19^th Century was when art and folk music became popular with society. Art music was seen as music that is composed by the artist, whereas folk music was seen as music from the people. There was an overlap in the 20^th century as chanting became popular but there was a strict separation during the enlightenment stage. Structures were built for chanting such as Winchester Cathedral as the echo made the noise sound good.  Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were seen as the ‘philosophers of music’.

Kant had his idea of aesthetics (intellectual activity ‘study of emotional response to beauty’). The ‘ideal forms’ are the most beautiful of each object. We experience a force when we are close to the perfect form. You can be trained to appreciate and understand beauty at places such as art school. The most powerful anaesthetic response is immunity to music- a piece of music that will make you think wow!

The idealist side was Plato and his ‘inner sense’ that was a juxtaposition to Aristotle. The sensational intellectual break through was the dual nature of perception. Things in themselves are known as the noumena but once they are observed they become a phenomena. The empiricists concluded that things are different when they aren’t being observed.

Napoleon- Nationalism, racism, cannibalism, WW1 and WW2 all came about during the French Revolution. European Empiricism conquered Egypt, Caribbean, Indian where the French civilisation allowed the country to come into contact with the Asian ways. Pre-Egyptian religion the Americans called them noble savages (naked people with bows and arrows). Rousseau saw these people as ‘ideal’ and the way in which everyone should live, in tipi's where you hunt your own food.

Hinduism is the oldest most sophisticated civilisation and cultural religion. They share a language with the Ancient Greeks as way back in time there was a group called the Indo European Language Group. However there was a sort of racism towards the European Civilisation where anyone outside of this were savage. Hinduism wasn’t known about for many years until the 1820s when Schopenhauer was the first person to try and study them. Hinduism has a set of customs such as you need a Guru to explain things to you. Buddhism is similar to Hinduism and has a popular exercise known as yoga which they use to put their mind at rest.

Schopenhauer’s big book  ‘The world as will and representation’ mentions ‘the will’ and the advance and difference between it. He believes that there is only 1 noumena which is the universe as a thing in itself. If you take away the stars and time from the universe you are left with the universe as an unknown thing in itself. There is no particular thing that is thought to be part of it.

The principle of being (why is there something?) was decided by Nietzsche who simply answers this with because God did it.  He decided that nobody believed God existed. The agnostic means certain knowledge in Greek and explains that we don’t know that God ever existed.

This was highly compatible with Hinduism as they believed that Brahma was the will of the universe itself. Whereas Maya was the impression of the strict Cartesian scepticism that everything is a dream.  Buddhism existence is pain. Wagner wanted western classical music that was simple and repetitive to last for years. Brahma is knowing that the world is a dream. Schopenhauer was blown away by this idea but brought a similar idea to Europe.

Schopenhauer says when you see things something makes them want to exist. There is no individual existence and everyone is part of the universe as a thing itself. You must overcome desire as experiencing these is the will of toxication. Art is a good form to prevent you from giving in to your desire whereas Hinduism would say you can control this by doing yoga. Freud on the other hand says you cannot control your will and that it will always overcome you at some point. Schopenhauer’s practical advice was to listen to music such as Wagner as it is a healthy intoxicating way of overcoming your desire.

In 1859 before Darwin’s discoveries people including David Hume were baffled about how humans had got here on earth. At this point it was believed that the world was only 5000 years old and it wasn’t until Darwin and his discoveries that it made it easy to understand where humans came from. However this also lead to the belief that God was dead as it was recognised he may not be the reason for existence. European civilisation was sheltered from the ontological problem but it was Descartes that believed in God.

Nietzsche announced that God was dead and then from then on it was viewed that no educated person believed in him anymore. He said the quote with regret as he believed that it would cause many wars and disagreements between different countries and cultures.

1876- An inconvenient meditation

1.     Denounces Wagner (Wagner's not a superman anymore)

2.     Against anti Semitism and nationalism

3.     Christian/romantic/ chivalric

4.     Make FM realise that Wagner is a secret Christian

1880- Human, all too human

1.     Aphoristic style- all his work is now method of Aphorism

2.      Doesn’t have to explain everything- denounces Socrates

3.     Humanism was progressive; now reactionary (Hegelian method perhaps)

4.     Man kind is a thing that must be overcome