Conclusion – Beyond Sensations Increasingly Divergent Points of View in Acoustics – Analytic and Holistic
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Conclusion – Beyond Sensations Instruments constitute a large part of what we know about Rudolph Koenig. They chronicle scientific, artisanal, social and deeply personal dimensions of their maker. And they continue to speak. I have sounded hundreds of tuning forks around Europe and North America, which resonate with a distinctively even, colourless and pure sound, one that came into being under specific conditions in the workshop cul- ture of nineteenth-century Paris. For well over 150 years, thousands of students have been introduced to the science of sound through the influence of Koenig’s atelier. The following chapters presented a portrait of this space and its role in the estab- lishment of a radically altered novel material foundation for the scientific study of sound between the 1860s and 1900. In the workshop, Koenig transformed acous- tics into a wide-ranging line of precision instruments in the mould of other fields represented in the Parisian precision trade; in his private laboratory, he pushed the technical boundaries of the field, shaped practice, and created a visual element for studying sound; in the commercial sphere he facilitated the transmission of specific kinds of teaching and research instruments throughout Europe and North America; in the social and material realms, his atelier served as a vibrant mediating space for diverse people, skills, instruments and materials. It was “chez Koenig” that many of the world’s influential scientists learned about developments in acoustics; in turn, it was “chez Koenig” that these same people influenced the products and scope of acoustical practice. Above all, Koenig’s atelier served as a platform for modifying, extending, spreading and challenging Helmholtz’s Sensations of Tone. Koenig’s workshop also recast fundamental notions of acoustical sensations. His legacy, or better, the legacy of his instruments, was complex in this regard. The rapid and popular proliferation of graphical and optical instruments altered conceptions of phenomena such as timbre and beats and reinvigorated an older conception of sound as waveforms (as opposed to discreet pulses represented in the early siren). The visual approach also inspired the study of acoustical sensations on their own terms, independent of their physical basis. On the other hand, Koenig was also the great perfector and proliferator of analytic instruments (e.g. tonometers) that, through sheer numbers and presence, reinforced, spread and stabilized features of the physical, elemental aspects of the Fourier/Helmholtz model. In this way Koenig’s instruments served what Robert Silverman (1992) has shown to be two 167 168 Conclusion – Beyond Sensations increasingly divergent points of view in acoustics – analytic and holistic. In both traditions, theory and instruments reinforced each other strengthening a point of view, and ultimately making a particular perspective seem inevitable.1 The physicists favoured the analytic instruments, while certain physiologists and early psychologists favoured the visual methods. The confrontation between Koenig and Helmholtz was as much about bodies of instruments and practice, as about their differing social and intellectual influences. As we saw in Chapter 7, Koenig’s challenges to Helmholtz were taken seri- ously and revealed that the nature of the so called elements of sound (sensations of tone) were open to reinterpretation. In fact, one found a similar crisis in optics during the same period (early 1870s) that Koenig commenced his first critical stud- ies on combination tones. As Rich Kremer and R. Steven Turner have shown, Ewald Hering famously challenged Helmholtz’s mechanistic theory of optical sensations.2 Kremer, for example, argued that Hering had been influenced by Ernst Mach in moving towards a phenomenalist approach of studying sensations. Mitchell Ash has added that this debate “mobilized alternative assumptions and theoretical models” that laid the groundwork for Gestalt psychology.3 Many scientists viewed the Koenig-Helmholtz debate in terms of subjective and objective sensations.4 Everything mysterious was thrown into the subjec- tive category, or as with Helmholtz, integrated into an equally ambiguous psy- chology revolving around unconscious inferences or concepts such as attention. Reacting against the latter turn in optics, Hering even accused Helmholtz of being “spiritualist.”5 In fact, this narrative remained deeply engrained in discussions about the parallel acoustical controversy. In his recounting of the debate in 1942, E.G. Boring claimed that both Koenig and Preyer “argued that combination tones are subjective, but those were the days when the dualism of mind and matter pervaded the thought of all the wise men.”6 But much more was at stake. For Hering it was a struggle to construct a broader understanding of sensory processes where sensations were treated as a reality them- selves and not defined by physics. “What transpires beyond the retina, we do not know,” he wrote in 1862.7 Ash concluded: “Whether these phenomena are “objec- tive” or “subjective,” whether they are “really” experienced directly or concluded from “unnoticed sensations,” was beside the point. Accepting the psychological reality of seen objects was a methodological necessity, “an indispensible prereq- uisite for understanding the visual function and its laws.”8 Similarly, Koenig’s adherence to the primacy of visual representations of timbre freed him from inter- preting timbre on physical, physiological or psychological terms. He treated the complex waveforms as mirror reflections of his auditory observations, with effects not understood by the sum of the parts, thus opening a conceptual space for hear- ing that would make sense to later Gestalt followers. This view of sensations also appeared in Koenig’s early vowel work where he presented numbers for the major vowels that were exactly an octave apart, governed by holistic groupings, and not, as Helmholtz advocated, physics and physiology of the larynx and mouth; Wertheimer Köhler, one of the early Gestalt pioneers found the same patterns as Koenig in his studies of 1910.9 There are also echoes of Koenig’s positions in Carl Stumpf’s work Conclusion – Beyond Sensations 169 on tonal fusion,10 and Mach’s view that a complete account of acoustic sensation needed to take into account relations as well as individual tones.11 For Hering, redefining sensations entailed heading off misguided psychophysics and what he believed to be potentially dangerous philosophical positions. In fact, Kremer has argued that a large part of the disputes derived from “differ- ent disciplinary orientations in the explanation of sensory phenomena.”12 Koenig’s challenge to Helmholtz, on the other hand, seemed less about philosophical com- mitment, disciplinary boundaries or creating a new school of psychology, and more about defending a livelihood. He refused to venture into debates about the mind and psychology, and instead moulded acoustics to the certainties of the work- shop. He worked with these phenomena daily. He watched, hour after hour, his optical and graphical instruments transcribing and displaying sound. He filed and fine-tuned thousands of tuning forks. He demonstrated his instruments to potential clients. He brought hundreds of Kilograms of instruments with him on demon- stration tours. He took great offence if any one criticized one of his instruments. He almost never mentioned Mach in publications or correspondence, except for the fact he sold some of his instruments. For Koenig not going beyond the ear was more of a statement about who he was – a highly skilled artisan with deep knowledge of sound. His silence on the mechanisms underlying timbre and beat tones was a rebuke to Helmholtz who he felt boldly conjectured beyond things “as they are.” Although much attention has been paid to Hering in optics, in the equally impor- tant acoustical realm, Koenig and a handful of others exposed basic assumptions in Helmholtz’s sensory physiology, which revealed deep and significant tensions in late nineteenth-century physics, psychophysics, philosophy and even ideological issues.13 Like parallel debates in psychophysics, Koenig reacted against particular elements of Helmholtz’s work (what he perceived to be overreaching theoretical and mechanistic elements), ignoring some of the subtleties and wider context.14 As we saw in Chapter 7, he used the full influence of his workshop to win over potential converts. Rayleigh himself was cautious to take sides, faced with choice between the grand German scientist on the one hand, and the most renowned acous- tical maker of his age on the other. Koenig’s questions found their way into these doubts and refused to go away. One weakness for Helmholtz, as Julia Kursell has shown, was that his theory of resonance (e.g. viewing the inner ear as a piano) was basically a theory of hearing for one ear, and not capable of addressing issues such as spatial orientation.15 Later in the twentieth century cognitive scientists developed complex theories such as auditory scene analysis that revealed a more complex, non-linear understanding of how humans process sensations.16 Koenig’s challenge to Helmholtz represented reactions and tensions that gave rise to Gestalt, and later cognitive approaches to sensory problems.17 Indeed, the ear and hearing remain far from understood and continue to be stud- ied through the influence of Koenig and Helmoholtz. Present hearing technologies similar to technologies developed in the nineteenth century, will always represent the limits of the cultures of the hearing research communies and industry.18 At a 170 Conclusion – Beyond Sensations recent hearing aid trade show I observed several dimensions of the present acousti- cal community at play on the convention floor, including manufacturers, marketers, engineers, scientists, teachers, clients, and practitioners. Koenig’s workshop in Paris represented a single space in the history of acoustics where all these influences co- existed, providing a powerful means for untangling how these forces continue to shape and create our modern soundscape. Notes 1 This idea is modeled after Hacking (1991). 2 Kremer (1992) and Turner (1994). 3 Ash (1995, p.