Aesthetics (Music) Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Appraisals from philosophers of aesthetics: A fascinating and broad overview. This book covers dance, poetry, literature, and painting, as well as music, all considered from a multidisciplinary perspective and including both... more

Appraisals from philosophers of aesthetics:

A fascinating and broad overview. This book covers dance, poetry, literature, and painting, as well as music, all considered from a multidisciplinary perspective and including both Continental and analytic approaches to philosophy. This unfairly neglected topic richly rewards the serious treatment that The Philosophy of Rhythm accords it.

—Stephen Davies (University of Auckland)

This remarkable collection of essays brings together philosophical and empirical approaches to the significance of rhythm across the arts. The approach is refreshingly interdisciplinary. Anyone concerned with the place of rhythm and metric structure in the arts, and-more generally-within the wider domain of human practices will find this an extraordinarily helpful volume.

—Robert Kraut (The Ohio State University)

We all know what rhythm is. But do we, really? Is it something in us or something in the world? Is it in the mind or in the body? Even if we answer “all of the above,” we’re not much closer to the essence of rhythm. We say that music has rhythm, but so does dance, poetry, prose, and perhaps even painting and sculpture. And what of nature—our breath and heartbeats, planetary rotations, and waves at the shore? Rhythm seems to have something to do with movement; but is this movement literal or metaphorical? What’s the connection between rhythm and pattern, meter, pulse, stress, accent, repetition? This wonderful collection considers all these questions (and many more) from a wide variety of angles, perspectives, and disciplines—among them analytic and continental philosophy, musicology, art history, poetics, and neuroscience. Like the dialogue that opens the book, The Philosophy of Rhythm supports no particular line of thought or argument but enormously deepens our understanding of a topic so palpable and yet so mysterious.—

—Christopher Cox (Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts)

Rhythm is so closely intertwined with our ways of perceiving and knowing the world that we seldom pause to ask ourselves what it is or what it means. In this collection the editors have assembled a formidable collection of scholars—philosophers, psychologists, musicians, literary critics, and ethno-musicologists—in order to explore the phenomenon of rhythm in all its aspects, and to consider the roots of rhythm in our social interactions, in our movements, and in the neural organization that enables us to keep time with each other and with the natural world. The result is a fascinating and highly instructive survey of a topic that has been neglected by philosophers for far too long, but which, thanks to this volume, will surely transform both the philosophy and the psychology of the arts. I have the strong sense that this book is the beginning of something, and the beginning of something big.

—Roger Scruton (Blackfriars College, Oxford University)

Examining rhythm as a blind spot in contemporary western thought, this volume presents ideas rooted in multiple disciplines to create a productive discord—even a rhythmic one. Contributors propose multiple perspectives on how music moves—and moves us—physically, emotionally, individually, temporally, and socially. Its sweeping humanistic perspectives, with dips into psychology and neuroscience, will appeal to a broad readership.

—Annie Kloppenberg (Colby College, Waterville, Maine)

Fascinating and mysterious, rhythm is at the heart of music, dance, poetry, sociology, and neuroscience. This inspired volume engages, enlightens, and is the first to explore rhythm across a broad range of philosophical, aesthetic, and perceptual domains. With sections on motion, emotion, entrainment, and time, the editors balance philosophical enquiry with experimental and critical insights, giving a broad perspective on our understanding of this crucial phenomenon. This book is required reading for anyone concerned with time and rhythm in contemporary life.

—Peter Nelson (University of Edinburgh)