Music and Human Existence Rhonda Claire Siu a Thesis In
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Music and human existence Rhonda Claire Siu A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Humanities and Languages Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences April 2014 i Abstract This thesis investigates the proposition that music plays a crucial role in human existence. More so than the other creative arts, music has been overlooked as a proper subject of philosophical investigation. Philosophy’s hesitation before music can be mainly attributed to the significant challenge posed by music’s seemingly indefinable nature or what Theodor Adorno terms its “enigma”. Unlike the analytic philosophy of music, which tends to view music as an abstract object of knowledge, my thesis investigates music’s remarkable ability to transform and enrich human existence. I do this by examining music in terms of a dynamic lived experience. This thesis demonstrates how music’s transformative effect stems from its intertwining with the interrelated corporeal, affective, intersubjective, temporal and spatial dimensions of existence. With recourse to Adorno’s philosophical aesthetics, this thesis begins with an analysis of why music’s enigma poses problems for traditional philosophical frameworks which seek to define it. Chapters two and three then examine how Schopenhauer and Nietzsche give music an elevated place amongst the creative arts through their claim to its ability to embody the metaphysical foundations of existence. I argue that the early Nietzsche improves Schopenhauer’s account by claiming not so much that music alleviates human suffering but that it provides the means of affirming life. Chapters four and five move beyond dependence on a metaphysics of Will to conceptualise music’s transformative power in terms of lived experience through Alfred Schutz and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological philosophies. Schutz’s philosophy examines how music is based on the intersubjective and temporal dimensions of existence. However, I ii identify a problem with Schutz’s privileging of the mind over the body in the musical experience. My analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of expression addresses this limitation by emphasising how music draws its creative power from the corporeal and affective aspects of experience. By investigating music in ways that emphasise its integral place in existence, this thesis thereby provides a potential starting point from which to redress music’s diminished presence in the philosophical literature. iii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Ros Diprose, for her guidance, support and generosity throughout my candidature. Her meticulous and honest feedback on the many drafts that I passed by her has been invaluable. She has taught me much about the actual craft of writing and of critical thinking, thereby providing me with the means to view aspects of my own work in a different light. Thank you also to my co-supervisor, Simon Lumsden, who has helped me greatly along the way. I am particularly grateful for the teaching opportunities that he has given to me and the support and guidance he provided to me in my capacity as a tutor. I would also like to acknowledge the moral support and kindness shown to me by fellow postgraduates. Not only have they been very generous in offering to read my work but they have also helped to see me through the more difficult moments of my candidature. In this respect, I wish to acknowledge (in no particular order) Anisha, Jac, Emilie, Scott, Kudzai, Wai Wai, Patricia, Beck, Yuzhou and Ash. I am also especially grateful to Francesco and Mindy. I have enjoyed undertaking this journey alongside them, including our many chats over coffee, at conferences, etc. The friendships that I have developed over the past few years with fellow residents at NCV have also enriched my life in so many different ways. In particular, by playing music with these residents, I have been constantly reminded of the reasons for why I chose my research topic in the first place. iv Thank you also to my family for always being there and seeing value in what I do. Last but not least, I would like to thank David, whose constant presence, generosity of spirit, and encouragement have been invaluable over the past few months. I could not have finished writing this thesis without his unwavering support. v Table of Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements iii Table of abbreviations vi Introduction 1 Chapter one: 11 Music’s “enigma” in Adorno’s philosophical aesthetics Chapter two: 61 Schopenhauer’s “metaphysics of music” Chapter three: 107 Music’s life-affirming power in Nietzsche’s early aesthetics Chapter four: 151 Music, temporality and intersubjectivity in Schutz’s phenomenology Chapter five: 212 Music, language and expression in Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenology Conclusion 276 Bibliography 282 vi Table of abbreviations Adorno, Theodor AT - Aesthetic Theory, trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor & ed. Gretel Adorno & Rolf Tiedemann (London: Continuum, 1997). ND - Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Seabury Press, 1973). PMM - Philosophy of Modern Music, trans. Anne G. Mitchell & Wesley V. Bloomster (London: Sheed & Ward, 1973). Merleau-Ponty, Maurice PhP - Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London: Routledge Classics, 2002). Nietzsche, Friedrich BT - The Birth of Tragedy, in The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1967). Referenced by section number followed by page number(s). DW - “The Dionysian Worldview”, trans. Claudia Crawford, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 13 (Spring 1997): 81-97. Referenced by section number followed by page number(s). GM - On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann and bound with Nietzsche, Friedrich, Ecce Homo (New York: Vintage Books, 1989). Referenced by essay number followed by section number and page number(s). GS - The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974). Referenced by section number followed by page number(s). vii MW - “On Music and Words”, trans. Walter Kaufmann, in appendix to Between Romanticism and Modernism: Four Studies in the Music of the Later Nineteenth Century, by Carl Dahlhaus, trans. Mary Whittall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 106-119. TL - “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense”, in Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the early 1870’s, trans. & ed. Daniel Breazeale (New Jersey: Humanities Press International, 1990), 79-97. Referenced by section number followed by page number(s). Schopenhauer, Arthur PP - Parerga and Paralipomena: short philosophical essays, 2 vols., trans. E.F.J. Payne (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974). WWR - The World as Will and Representation, 2 vols., trans. E.F. J. Payne (New York: Dover Publications, 1966). 1 INTRODUCTION Every rehearsal of the Maggiore Quartet begins with a very plain, very slow three-octave scale on all four instruments in unison: sometimes major, as in our name, sometimes minor, depending on the key of the first piece we are to play. No matter how fraught our lives have been over the last couple of days, no matter how abrasive our disputes about people or politics, or how visceral our differences about what we are to play and how we are to play it, it reminds us that we are, when it comes to it, one. We try not to look at each other when we play this scale; no one appears to lead. Even the first upbeat is merely breathed by Piers, not indicated by any movement of his head. When I play this I release myself into the spirit of the quartet. I become the music of the scale. I mute my will, I free my self.1 The central place of music in human existence has often been, and continues to be, overlooked. More often than not, music is simply regarded as a means of escapism, that is, a realm wherein we can be shielded from, and thereby rendered immune to, the trials and tribulations of everyday life. That music is still regarded as a negligible, rather than crucial, part of human experience is encapsulated in F. Joseph Smith’s astute observation that the “problem with music is that it has too often been regarded as a mere embellishment to civilization, as entertainment, as something not belonging in essential manner to man’s spirit”.2 This thesis challenges this widespread view by examining, from a philosophical perspective, the more fundamental roles that music might play in human existence once we rethink the nature of human existence itself. To an even greater extent than the other creative arts, such as painting, sculpture and architecture, music is often passed over as a proper subject of philosophical investigation. This is emphasised in Dennis J. Schmidt’s remark that: 1 Vikram Seth, An Equal Music (Orion Books: London, 1999), 12. 2 F. J. Smith, introduction to In Search of Musical Method, ed. F. J. Smith (London: Gordon and Breach, 1976), 1. 2 what we find in [the] history [of philosophy] is that philosophers have tended to exhibit one of two attitudes to the phenomenon of music: ignoring it or sublating it. Mostly, philosophy has simply ignored music so that one is not terribly surprised when Lacoue-Labarthe suggests that “it would not be an exaggeration to propose that […] nothing really has happened in more than two thousand years between music and philosophy, and that the history of their relations is, in a word, quite dull.” Or, when music is taken up by philosophers (and here it is mostly the case that systematic philosophers who are driven by an extra-musical concern with systematicity), then music is usually sublated into concerns that move away from, rather than toward, the heart of music.3 Philosophy’s hesitation before music can be mainly attributed to the significant challenge posed by music’s seemingly “indefinable” nature or what Theodor Adorno calls its “enigma”.4 Unlike conventional philosophical notions of language, music is usually regarded as being inherently non-representational, non-semantic and a- conceptual.