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The Phenomenology of a Simple Song: Expression, Creativity, and the Recovery of Aesthetics

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The Phenomenology of a Simple Song: Expression, Creativity, and the Recovery of Aesthetics The Phenomenology of a Simple Song: Expression, Creativity, and the Recovery of Aesthetics by Susan Patrick Breit A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. Graduate Program in Interdisciplinary Studies York University, Toronto, Ontario December 2013 © Susan Patrick Breit 2013 Abstract By placing aesthetics as art back within the phenomena of experience, this work seeks to recover philosophical aesthetics from the marginal position into which it has been relegated. Merleau-Ponty’s thought and the perception of music lay a groundwork for ontology and epistemology less conditioned by Cartesian biases. Musical thinking highlights the rich content of thought, the dimensionality of meaning, and the need to place language back within the phenomena of expression. A phenomenology of expression by way of songwriting reveals a complex creative process, a good portion of which is not transparent (neither rooted in reflective thought nor consciously determined). There emerges a notion of subjectivity and intentionality that transcends and subtends the “I” with which we ordinarily identify. The lyre of Orpheus opens the doors of the unreflective life, the aesthetic dimension, the intimacy of the world that transcends us, and the generosity of the subjectivity that subtends us. ii Acknowledgements This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and by a grant from the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program. I wish to thank the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at York University for providing a home for this research. Thanks also to the Graduate Program in Philosophy at the University of Waterloo for welcoming me as an Ontario Visiting Graduate Student. I was fortunate to benefit from Professor Richard Holmes’ expertise in phenomenology, and his support allowed me to feel that threads, both thematic and personal, were carried forward from earlier work with him and Professor Bill Abbott. Many thanks go to Professor Michael Coghlan who supported the musical portion of the thesis. I am grateful for the expertise of Professors Ian Balfour and Joan Steigerwald who provided support for the theoretical portion. I benefited from the fact that they came at the study from different perspectives. Each posed different but complimentary questions, questions that challenged me and encouraged me to think and to be clear on that to which I was prepared to commit. They also provided much appreciated editorial advice. I have been honoured by their sincere engagement with the material and have benefited from their guidance. I must thank my mother Betty Patrick who generously put me up for some much- needed stints of intensive writing. During this time away, friends and family stepped up to keep the home-fires burning. Thanks to all, particularly to Joanne McNally and Gary Breit. I extend special thanks to my son Ethan who is a continual source of joy and inspiration. To my husband Garth, who carried the lion’s share of the burden when I was away or writing to deadline, I could not have even begun this journey had it not been for his love and support. Finishing it required his patience and perseverance, and for that I am most grateful. In his Phenomenology of Perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes: “This book, once begun, is not a certain set of ideas; it constitutes for me an open situation, for which I could not possibly provide any complex formula, and in which I struggle blindly on until, miraculously, thoughts and words become organized by themselves.”1 So finally, this thesis is a testament to whatever it is that allows for this coming together, this crystallization, whether in thesis or song. The work represents a token of this generosity and is, in return, a token of my gratitude. 1 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, translated by Colin Smith (London and New York: Routledge Classics, 2002), 429. iii Table of Contents Chapter 1: The Phenomenology of A Simple Song..........................................................1 Chapter 2: Music, Method, and Marginalization ............................................................16 KNOWLEDGE AS INTERACTION........................................................................................................................17 i. Objectivation and Ontology ...................................................................................................................19 ii. Field and The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness .............................................................................25 PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD: ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE..........................................................................30 i. Belonging to the World and Epistemology............................................................................................31 ii. The “Opening of a Dimension”............................................................................................................36 Chapter 3: Music, Meaning, and Metaphor....................................................................41 MEANING AND MARGINALIZATION ................................................................................................................42 i. The Rich Content of Thought .................................................................................................................46 ii. Metaphor and Meaning .........................................................................................................................51 ONE RATIONALISM ..........................................................................................................................................56 i. The Heart of the Matter ..........................................................................................................................56 ii. The Genesis of Meaning ........................................................................................................................66 Chapter 4: Expression and Subjectivity .........................................................................74 CREATIVITY AND COGITO ...............................................................................................................................74 Approaching Expression............................................................................................................................79 DOUBLE ANONYMITY: INDIVIDUAL AND INTEGRAL......................................................................................83 i. Style and Person......................................................................................................................................83 ii. The Situation and Ek-stase....................................................................................................................94 SUBJECTIVITY AND CREATIVITY ...................................................................................................................103 Chapter 5: Expression and Intentionality .....................................................................106 BEING OPEN, BEING - OPEN..........................................................................................................................107 i. Improvisation and Operative Intentionality........................................................................................109 ii. The Mystery of Beginnings..................................................................................................................111 INTENTION AND INTENTIONALITY.................................................................................................................121 i. Creation as Interaction and Dialogue.................................................................................................121 ii. Creativity and Reflection.....................................................................................................................126 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-AS-SUBJECT .............................................................................................130 Chapter 6: Singing the World ......................................................................................137 EXPRESSION AND EXISTENCE........................................................................................................................137 THE INTIMACY OF THE METAPHYSICAL EXPERIENCE..................................................................................142 Sisyphus and Orpheus..............................................................................................................................152 SINGING THE WORLD.....................................................................................................................................155 Appendix A: Simple Songs (Lyrics) ............................................................................161 Appendix B: Simple Songs (CD).................................................................................174 References...................................................................................................................175 iv Our view of [humanity] will remain superficial so long as we fail to go back to that origin, so long as we fail to find, beneath the chatter of words, the primordial silence, and as long as we do not describe the action which breaks this silence. Maurice Merleau-Ponty2 It was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be
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