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Aristotle on Music As Representation Author(S): Göran Sörbom Source: the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol

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Aristotle on Music As Representation Author(S): Göran Sörbom Source: the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol Aristotle on Music as Representation Author(s): Göran Sörbom Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 52, No. 1, The Philosophy of Music (Winter, 1994), pp. 37-46 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/431583 . Accessed: 26/09/2011 11:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Blackwell Publishing and The American Society for Aesthetics are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. http://www.jstor.org GORAN SORBOM Aristotle on Music as Representation In his Politics and Poetics Aristotle claims that othersof motion,and of theselatter again, some have music is a form of imitation (mimesis) and that a morevulgar, others a noblermovement.3 pieces of music are images of character.' It is a view Aristotle obviously shares with Plato,2 I. LISTENING TO MUSIC IS A FORM and this outlook seems to have been accepted OF AESTHESIS by many authors throughout antiquity, even if it is not the only view held during this period of In an attemptto understandthe ancient Greek the nature of music. In our times it is, on the way of thinkingand describingwhat music is, it contrary, not natural to regard pieces of music is useful to start with the theory of aesthesis, as images of something or to say that we listen i.e., the Greek conception of what it is to look at to images. In this paper I will try to reconstruct and to listen to things and generally to perceive parts of the conceptual framework within things. An initial difficulty here is that the terms which the idea that music is a kind of image has "aesthesis" and "perception" are not syn- been thought and formulated in antiquity, as a onymous. We cannot presuppose that what we background for a better understanding of the understandby "perception"is what the Greeks ancient outlook on music as image. First some understoodby "aesthesis." crucial quotations from Aristotle's Politics in Basic here is the distinctionbetween aesthe- which the nature of music in terms of images sis and noesis, which is the distinctionbetween and imitations is discussed: what we can see (and vision is often used as the most importantform of aesthesis and thus the Rhythm and melody supply imitations of anger and representativeof the other senses) and what we gentleness, and also of courage and temperance,and think. In Plato's strongly dualistic view, what of all the qualities contraryto these, and of the other we can see we cannot think and what we think qualities of character,which hardly fall short of the we cannot see.4 Noesis grasps the world of uni- actual affections, as we know from our own experi- versals, whereas aesthesis consists of the im- ence, for in listening to such strains our souls printson the mind of the particularsof the world undergo a change. ... The objects of no other sense, in a variety of ways. such as taste or touch, have any resemblanceto moral The fundamental metaphor used by both qualities; in visible objects there is only a little, for Plato and Aristotle in describing the process of there are figures which are of a moral character,but aesthesis is that of pressure;the particulars,i.e., only to a slight extent, and all do not participatein the things seen, heard, touched, etc., press their the feeling about them. Again, figures and colours individual shapes and qualities into the minds are not imitations,but signs, of character,indications of the living organisms via the sense organs which the body gives of states of feeling. ... On the (and sometimes through a medium like air). other hand, even in mere melodies there is an imita- They do so without imposing the matterof the tion of character,for the musical modes differ essen- particularon the perceiver; only their shapes tially from one another,and those who hear them are and qualities appear in the mind of the per- differently affected by each.... The same principles ceiver. There is, of course, a large variety of apply to rhythms; some have a character of rest, opinions in antiquity regarding the nature of The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52:1 Winter 1994 38 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism noesis and aesthesis and their interrelations;for image generated, for instance, by drugs and instance, the atomists described aesthesis in fever. When we are hallucinating there is no terms of atoms, and the neoplatonistsdescribed outward object that can be correctly or incor- the appearanceof particularsin the mind as an rectly related to the mental image occurring, interplaybetween impressions from the outside but the spectator believes there is; maybe the and universals residing in the mind. Alter- hallucination also lacks in consistency com- natively, some philosophers believed that the paredto correctaesthesis, whereas strengthand mind sends out something like rays through vividness can be both strongeror weaker than the sense organs in orderto "feel" the shape of average aesthesis. the particulars.5But either way, it is the meta- Thus, correct aesthesis, illusion and hallu- phor of pressure which is fundamental. cination all are forms of aesthesis. But there are The process in which this pressureresults in yet other forms of awareness of particulars an awareness in the mind of the particulars related to aesthesis. Aristotle claims that cor- seen and heard is often described with the rect aesthesis, illusion and hallucination are terms "like" and "unlike"; there is a shift passive forms of aesthesis in the sense that in the sense organ from unlike to like, and this mental images are created or received in the shift generatesthe mental image of the particu- mind without the active interference of the lar thing heard and looked at. For example, mind. But the mind can also on its own call when a signet ring is pressed into wax, it forth mental images of particulars without changes the wax from a shape which is unlike there being anything outside the mind arousing the ring to a shape which is like the ring.6 them, as in correct aesthesis and illusion and, Now, there are five senses but just one con- in a way, also in hallucination. When we re- sciousness. This fact made Aristotle postulate member something a mental image is called that there is an aesthesis koine (common sense) forth, a mental image that often lacks in con- which synthesizes the "reports"from the dif- sistency and vividness compared to correct ferent senses into one complex but unified aesthesis. It is a recalling which is partly image of the world of particulars. steered by our will of things once experienced Further,the philosophers of antiquitydistin- in aesthesis, and we know that this is the fact; guished a number of kinds of aesthesis. These otherwise the mental image would be a delu- distinctions are drawn with regard to the rela- sion. Memories are always of particulars.We tion between the mental image and the things cannot rememberthoughts; we can only think arousing it, particularlythe correctness,consis- them. Or in Plato's vivid metaphor of anam- tency and vividness of the mental images and nesis, thoughts are memories of the acquain- the awarenessof this relationin the receiver. As tance with Platonic ideas in an earlierexistence a rule, a mental image is taken to be correct in an eternal world. Dreams belong to another when the shape of it is the same as the actual form of active aesthesis which certainly can be shape of the particular thing seen or heard. as vivid as but seldom as consistent as correct Obviously this is not always the case. The clas- aesthesis. At least when we are awake we know sical example is introduced by Plato: if we, that dreams are generated by the mind itself. when rowing, look at the oars while they are But we don't know this in the state of dreaming. partly under water, the mental image shows Plato remarks:"Is not the dream state, whether broken oars. But we know they are not. The the man is asleep or awake, just this: the mis- "higher part of our mind" which calculates, taking of resemblance for identity?"8 Finally, measures, etc., tells us the truth, Plato wrote.7 daydreamsand fantasies are forms of aesthesis. This latter kind of aesthesis is often called When we are imagining something we know illusion; there is a thing outside the mind arous- that there is no outwardthing answering to the ing a mental image, but this mental image is not mental image createdby our imagination.When adequate to the thing looked at. The perceiver we are daydreamingwe are, perhaps,balancing believes it is, however. Vividness and consis- on the edge between knowing and not knowing tency may be the same in both cases; the oar that there is no outwardobject answeringto the looks broken even if we know it is not. An mental image, and this act of balance gives hallucination, on the other hand, is a mental strengthand vividness to the daydream. Sorbom Aristotle on Music as Representation 39 II. IMAGES AND (REAL) THINGS In The Cratylus Plato contrasts words and images with each other with respect to what To look at images and imitationsis, of course, a they representor what they signify.
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