Music, aesthetics of

By Levinson, Jerrold

The aesthetics of music comprises philosophical reflection on the origin, nature, power, purpose, creation, performance, reception, meaning and value of music. Some of its problems are general problems ...

Music, aesthetics of

By Trivedi, Saam

Philosophical reflection on music goes back in the West at least as far as the Pythagoreans and Plato, and has undergone an exceptionally fertile period within analytic philosophy ...

Music, aesthetics of

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Emotion

By Richardson, Louise

As befits the variety of roles that emotion plays in our lives, emotion is a topic of consideration in a variety of areas of philosophy and this is ...

Sibley, Frank (1923–96)

By Lyas, Colin

Sibley was an English philosopher, noted for his contributions to aesthetics. His most famous published paper, ‘Aesthetic Concepts’, distinguishes ‘aesthetic’ terms (such as graceful) from ‘non-aesthetic terms’ (such ...

Aesthetic issues in jazz

By Kania, Andrew

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Hanslick, Eduard (1825–1904)

By Kivy, Peter

Eduard Hanslick, a music critic for the popular Viennese press, is principally known as the author of Vom Musikalisch-Schönen (1854). This is probably the most widely read work ...

Aesthetics

By Budd, Malcolm

Aesthetics owes its name to Alexander Baumgarten who derived it from the Greek aisthanomai, which means perception by means of the senses (see Baumgarten, A.G.). As the ...

Opera, aesthetics of

By Tanner, Michael

Opera, which may be defined as a dramatic action set in large part to music, is an inherently unstable art form, more so than any other. It has ...

Gurney, Edmund (1847–88)

By Levinson, Jerrold

Edmund Gurney was an English psychologist and musician. His major work, The Power of Sound, is a vast treatise on musical aesthetics, ranging from issues in the physiology ...

Dance, aesthetics of

By McFee, Graham

The aesthetics of dance is the philosophical investigation of the nature of dance, of our interest in it, especially as an art form, and of the variety of ...

Art, performing

By Davies, Stephen

Some works, such as plays and pieces of classical music, are created as instructions (either notated or implicit in an exemplar) for performers; performances of such pieces arise ...

Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788–1860)

By Janaway, Christopher

Schopenhauer, one of the great prose-writers among German philosophers, worked outside the mainstream of academic philosophy. He wrote chiefly in the first half of the nineteenth century, publishing ...

Art, performing

Some works, such as plays and pieces of classical music, are created as instructions (either notated or implicit in an exemplar) for performers; performances of such pieces arise ...

Langer, Susanne Katherina Knauth (1895–1985)

By Brand, Peg

With roots in logic, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, Susanne Langer sought to explicate the meaning and cognitive import of art works by developing a theory ...

Art, performing

Some works, such as plays and pieces of classical music, are created as instructions (either notated or implicit in an exemplar) for performers; performances of such pieces arise ...

Popular music

By Gracyk, Theodore

Popular music is a neglected topic in philosophy, and only recently have philosophers examined it sympathetically and with concern for its positive attributes. The distinction of some music ...

Emotion in response to art

By Levinson, Jerrold

The main philosophical questions concerning emotion in response to art are as follows. (1) What kind or type of emotions are had in response to works of art? ...

Improvisation in the arts

By Ravasio, Matteo

Broadly defined as extemporaneous decision-making, improvisation has until recently been given scant attention by philosophers of art. The reasons for this are hard to pin down, but it ...