PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC FROM AESTHETIC REASON
I
The concept of a ‘philosophy of music from aesthetic reason’ is based on an experience and is tied to a reflection of a certain type: a reflection upon the validity of rational claims. Such a reflection does not make claims about what is the case (quid facti) but asks how such claims can be justified in the first place (quid juris). The experience in question, on the other hand, is not just any experience. It is the experience of the situation that determines musical thought. This situation is the state of new music. Experience of the state of new music needs to be confirmed by a reflection upon the grounds of its validity. Nevertheless, it is the experience of the state of new music – and not the reflection quid juris – which determines musical thought. Without this experience, the reflection on validity would remain empty. Conversely, without the reflection on its validity, the experience of the situation of new music would remain blind. It seems to me that many current philosophical investigations of music are, in this sense, either empty or blind, or both at the same time.
II
The experience of the state of new music is the experience of its immanence. The immanence of new music lies in the belief that reshaping new music through practices, situations, body politics, activism, constructing-instruments, realisms [Wirklichkeiten] and other academicisms would offer solution whereas, in fact, it is the very problem.
This belief is part of a complex that has been identified – crudely – by Hanns Eisler, as ‘the stupidity in music’.1 Eisler’s formula is more than merely defamatory; it also articulates a state of affairs. It must be read within the horizon of Karl Marx’s description of bourgeois freedom as ‘a free development upon a limited basis’.2 The limited basis of free development is the capitalist production of value. This form of value production is limited precisely because it consumes and transforms everything else; it subsumes all things except itself and therefore remains bound to itself. The limit of capital is nothing other than its immanence: the capitalist form of production cannot think anything beyond the production of surplus value. The same goes for what Eisler calls the stupidity in music. Music is stupid insofar as it is part of the capitalist production of surplus value but is not capable of transcending it. Music develops itself freely on a limited basis. For Eisler, this means in a very concrete sense that music works with a limited material.3 It works within the boundaries of sounds and sonic relations. Fixed to this narrow field, music remains stupid in relation to the capitalist mode of production. Eisler opposed this stupidity not only to the avant-gardists of the 1950s but also to Adorno’s concept of musical material which informed them. And he was right: for neither did the material of the musical avant-garde touch the basis of value production – remaining in the immanence of (post-)tonal systems and thereby developing freely on a limited basis – nor did Adorno’s conception of the musical material as ‘sedimented spirit’4 transcend this immanence. Even if Adorno saw the Weberian rationality of economy and society sedimented in sounds and their relations, the accumulation of value remains outside the reach of these sediments. A musical reflection on the limited basis of music does not occur. The material of music remains within music’s boundaries.
The contemporary state of new music looks different, however. Its material is not limited to sounds and sonic relations. It rather also includes practices, situations, body politics, activisms, constructing-instruments, realisms and other academicisms. Such a music seems to have overcome its stupidity. Music now seems to permanently thematize its limited basis. It seems intelligent. Yet the material just mentioned is, in fact, no material at all. It is rather the medium in which new music is actualized. This music is an instance of practices, situations, body politics, activisms, constructing-instruments, realisms and other academicisms, and thereby moves within them. A medium is always a complex of immanence – however liquified it might present itself. Something happens within a medium; and in this sense, the different media of new music are its immanence. They are its new limited basis. New music subsumes everything within these media in order to enrich itself; but it does not reach out to the basis of value production. That is why, conversely, music continues at the same time to be subsumed under the production of surplus value: as a factor of practices, situations, body politics, activisms, constructing-instruments, realisms and other academicisms which are all integrated into the current framework of value production; that is, the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ of diversifying valorization.5
In this situation, music does not think what would be beyond valorization. The Other of valorization would not fulfill any function within the complex of value production. It would be in and for itself and would follow its own rules. It would thereby oppose itself to the practices, situations, body politics, activisms, constructing-instruments, realisms and other academicisms, and stop to play along with their norms. It would be autonomous. Autonomous music is traditionally called a ‘musical work’. According to this discursive tradition, the musical work would be what is beyond the realm of valorization. The contemporary state of new music can therefore be grasped as follows: instead of being bound to the limitations of the musical material, the stupidity in music today lies in its inability to think the musical work of art.
This immanence is even more blind to extra-musical material than was the historical avant-garde. The new music of that time was consciously performed by concentrating on a material that was shaped by serialism, musique concrète, electronic music and aleatory composition. It assumed its limits in order to advance within them. Instead of opening its limits from the inside, however, today’s new music denies them. It claims to overcome them by the very act of subsuming itself under already existing practices, situations, body politics, activisms, constructing-instruments, realisms and other academicisms. It presents the diversification of the already existing as an act of overcoming. It corresponds to what Foucault celebrated as ‘happy positivism’.6 Far from being ashamed of its immanence, new music lives a lie.
III
The concept of a ‘philosophy of music from aesthetic reason’ struggles against the immanence of new music. Aesthetic reason is that form of reason which is directed to the musical work. Hence, the concept aims at thinking the non-valuable Other that the practices, situations, body politics, activisms, constructing-instruments, realisms and other academicisms obstruct. In other words, the concept tries to think the transcendence of valorization. In trying to think what would be beyond the practices of value production, it allows for the experience of the state of new music and for the struggle against it. In this sense, the concept of a ‘philosophy of music from aesthetic reason’ takes upon itself a recently articulated claim and assumes a partisan position.7 It is the partisan of all compositional attempts to realize a ‘new forward-moving beauty’8 against the immanence of the existing, diversifying music of valorization. It is a partisan concept.
However, the partisan concept should not be based merely on a decision in view of the present situation. Otherwise, it would be nothing more than the sign of a subjective and arbitrary decisionism that blindly imposes its own facticity over other facts. The partisan concept needs another basis; it needs a justification. Such a justification must proceed in two steps. First, one must verify the claim that music can be determined by aesthetic reason. And second, one must confirm the idea that the philosophy of music is to be determined by the state of new music. Both claims are located within an investigation of the specifics of the philosophy of music because only the specific determination of what the philosophy of music is can answer whether it is performed by aesthetic reason and whether it is defined by the current state of music.
IV
To specify what the philosophy of music is, one can proceed by way of a critique. The contemporary philosophy of music is usually directed to music in what the philosophical tradition calls an intentio recta – that is, it tries to access and grasp music straightforwardly, in a direct way. Philosophy turns music into a directly accessible object of investigation without reflecting beforehand whether its means of grasping and its ways of accessing are valid for and adapted to the very object of music.
This holds equally for the analytical philosophy that prevails in academic philosophy as for the phenomenological or eclectic approaches that one often encounters in art historical disciplines. The analytical ontology of music, for example, locates music as a being among other beings.9 This localization makes use of the usual ontological models of different types of beings. However, this approach does not consider whether, and under what conditions, these ontological models are valid for music. The models are straightforwardly applied to music so that musical objects appear either as the compliance classes of a score or as abstract entities. What remains unclear is whether music belongs to this field of validation – of ontology corresponding to theoretical judgments – in the first place.
The phenomenological or eclectic philosophies of music proceed in a similar way. They do not ask whether their methods and concepts are adequate for understanding music but transpose them from other fields of inquiry. Music is thereby slotted into a continuum of given entities which lies open for philosophical investigations. Hence, the investigations reveal themselves as forms of positivism. The validity of the music-philosophical approach is not corroborated by any means.
The step beyond the intentio recta on music is taken by a philosophical thinking that bends itself back upon and reconsiders this intentio recta. Such a philosophy of music performs an intentio obliqua. How thought can have access to music then becomes the first subject of investigation, before one philosophically determines music itself. Such a reflection is performed by the theory of musical apprehension [musikalischer Nachvollzug].10 This approaches music as a philosophical topic within the framework of an investigation of our access to music. This access is defined as a form of apprehension [Nachvollzug] and opens the possibility of an oblique philosophy of music that would reflect the intentio recta on music. Unfortunately, the theory of musical apprehension does not perform such a reflection but proposes a meta-theory of musical apprehension instead: it performs a higher-level intentio recta on the intentio recta on music.
The theory of apprehension does not determine music directly – intentio recta – but considers our way of accessing music and thereby opens a way out of the positivism of the other approaches. One could therefore try to the read this theory against the grain: not as a meta-theory but as a reflection. In this attempt, however, the theory reveals another blind spot. When it investigates the intentio recta on music from a higher level, it considers the activity of the intentio recta and defines it as a form of apprehension. It does not question the validity of the intentio recta but reflects on its activity. As a reflection on an activity and not a reflection upon validity, the theory is still marked by a trace of positivism. It surely investigates what it means for musical apprehension to succeed or to fail. Yet it does take the content of the activity of apprehension for granted: what is apprehended appears – within the theory of apprehension – as something merely given. But, as we will see, it is this content of apprehension that claims validity in the first place, and it is only with regard to this content that the apprehension itself can be said to be adequate or not.
In order to clarify this point, it might be useful to introduce the conceptual distinction between the two aspects of thinking designated by the notions of noesis and noema: noesis is the act of thinking; noema is the content that is generated by that activity. Correspondingly, the theory of musical apprehension focuses on the noesis, the act of apprehension. But the success or failure of musical apprehension cannot be conceived independently from the noema, because it is the noema – the generated content of thought – that claims to be valid with regard to its subject matter. The validity of the noesis stems from the validity of the noema in relation to what the noema is about. A reflection on the noesis must therefore be corroborated by a reflection on the noema.11 Returning to the question of musical thoughts, this means that the validity of the intentio recta on music cannot be explained by a mere reflection on the noesis, but only by reflecting on the thought – the noema – that is generated by the noesis, and which claims to be valid.
A thought which claims to be valid is usually called a judgment. This allows for another terminological transposition of what I have been saying: the intentio recta on music is a thinking activity that generates thoughts which claim to be valid in relation to the music in question. These thoughts are judgments about music. Musical listening is one such form of thinking.12 It is even the most saturated form of thinking about music. For whatever else music might be, it is first and foremost something one can listen to. Thus, the form of thinking that grasps music in its full determination is a thinking in listening. If this is true, then musical listening is a way of making judgments about music. Its intentio recta is not merely an actualization of auditive capacities, but an activity of making claims. These claims are the musical judgments, the thoughts that are generated by the intentio recta on music – and these claims are either valid or they are not.
V
A philosophy of music that performs an intentio obliqua is directed at the musical judgment. It reflects not only on the activity of generating, but also on the validity of the generated musical thoughts. One can call this form of philosophy a musical validity reflection. Its task is to clarify the form of judgment that the intentio recta on music generates.
For this task, one must distinguish the musical intentio recta from the intentio recta in general. Every intentional act has the form that one directs oneself towards something as something. Hence, this form has two sides: first, the intentio recta is directed towards something, and second, it grasps that towards which it is directed under a certain description. What is grasped is grasped as being something. In order to articulate this second side – the description under which something is grasped – it is useful to borrow an idea from Wittgenstein. The idea is the following: that to perceive something as something means to perceive something according to a certain interpretation.13 When one perceives something according to a certain interpretation, one’s perception is – so to speak – guided by this interpretation.14
The famous example is the drawing that can be seen as a duck or a rabbit depending on which interpretation guides one’s perception. For our attempt to articulate the structure of intentionality, this idea has the following consequence: whenever we are directed towards something as something, we are directed towards it according to an interpretation. Our intentionality is guided by an interpretation. Whenever we are directing ourselves towards something as something, we are guided in a certain way. In other words: we understand something in a certain way. Being guided in a certain way, we presuppose certain contexts of understanding that allow us to grasp what we are directed to, according to a certain interpretation. We can therefore articulate the general form of an intentio recta as follows: to direct oneself towards something which we understand as something according to a certain interpretation that guides our access to it. The same idea can be put into Kantian terms by saying: no intentionality without productive imagination.15
The general form of intentionality – to direct oneself towards something with productive imagination – can now be specified with regard to music. Music is something one can listen to; it is made of sounds. A sound is an audible state of affairs. Audible states of affairs are not acoustic states of affairs. Acoustic states of affairs contain oscillations of air pressure and their waves, fields, refractions and so on. They become audible states of affairs only once they are perceived through hearing. And hearing is intentionally structured. It hears something as something. Hearing is directed towards something which it grasps according to a certain interpretation that guides it in a certain way. In other words: hearing involves productive imagination. This structure applies for any sound. The musical sound, however, is specified by a certain interpretation according to which one listens. Hence the musical intentio recta is a certain kind of auditive intentio recta.
The specific kind of interpretation that guides musical listening can be introduced by contrasting it with non-musical interpretations of sounds. We hear something non-musically when we hear it as a siren, a signal, a laugh, a creation by Irvine Arditti and so on. In those cases, sounds are perceived as documents of a non-sound, and the interpretations according to which we hear them are interpretations in the horizon of the extra-sonic world.16 We hear something as a siren when we grasp it as the signal of an operation of the fire brigade; we hear something as a creation by Irvine Arditti when we understand it as being generated by a famous violinist on his instrument. The operations of the fire brigade and the violinist Arditti are obviously non-sounds. Non-musical sounds are understood within general contexts which are not sonically determined. The musical sound distinguishes itself from sounds in general by enfranchising itself from this non-musical horizon. The specificity of the musical sound lies in the interpretation of it within a horizon that is determined by sounds alone. For the act of listening, this means: the productive imagination of musical listening grasps sounds as sounds.
In this way, musical listening can be distinguished from hearing in general. One listens to a sound musically whenever one grasps the sound not as the document of a non-sound – a fire brigade or a violinist – but just as sound, without any documentary function. To listen to sounds in this way means to grasp it in accordance with the rules of sound. This has far-reaching consequences. To listen to a sound according to sonic rules means to hear it according to its self-regulation. It means to listen to the autonomy of the sound. To listen musically, then, means to listen to a sound according to an interpretation within the framework of the autonomy of sound. Within this framework, the productive imagination hears sounds as themes, motives, imitations, as stretto, tonic, dominant, antecedent and consequent, as points, masses, clouds and so on. Sounds are grasped under interpretations which concern the sonic world alone. In being guided by these interpretations, musical listening produces the autonomous sounds’ complex of sense. And this goes for the musical sound itself, because the musical sound is nothing other than the result of the productive imagination in musical listening. The musical sound is a sound grasped within the horizon of the sonic world. It is a sound conceived under the self-regulation of sound. Musical sound is autonomous sound.
By means of these distinctions, we can specify the musical intentio recta. The musical intentionality is directed to autonomous sounds. This insight sheds light upon the form of judgment which determines the musical intentio recta. There are three basic forms of judgment: theoretical, practical and aesthetic. Only the aesthetic judgment considers sounds as musical sounds. For autonomous sounds cannot be grasped in theoretical or practical considerations. A theoretical judgment determines its object in the context of the knowable world and its laws. It considers sounds as acoustic states of affairs or as documents of non-sonic things and events. This means that within the theoretical judgment sounds are grasped as a fragment of the world. All fragments of the world are governed by natural laws. In this sense, they are necessarily heteronomous sounds. Insofar as sounds are grasped in a theoretical judgment, they cannot be conceived as autonomous.
A practical judgment, on the other hand, determines its object within the context of actions and its norms and rules. It considers sounds as acoustic states or documents that concern the outer motives or the self-determination of listeners to act in a certain way. This means that sounds are grasped as reasons for action. As such, they are governed by the laws of action. Hence, they are heteronomous sounds. Therefore, a practical judgment cannot thematize sounds as musical sounds neither.
An aesthetic judgment, however, determines its object neither as a fragment of the world, nor as a reason for action. Rather, it determines the sound with regard to its concinnity or coherence [Stimmigkeit]. In this way, an aesthetic judgment does not consider its object as an instance of a general law of nature, nor does it understand it within the framework of forced or self-determined rule-following in action. Rather, it conceives the object immanently, considering its self-regulation. It considers sound as something autonomous. The aesthetic judgment grasps sound in its autonomy and thereby understands it musically. Only the aesthetic judgment expresses the musical works’ particular nexus of sense. Only the aesthetic judgment is a musical judgment.
We can therefore resume: the intentio recta on music – the productive imagination of musical listening – takes the form of an aesthetic judgment. This does not entail that every intentio recta on music is an aesthetic judgment. Most of the time, it isn’t. But it entails that the intentio recta on music, in the last instance, aims at an aesthetic judgment about the sounds: a judgment which concerns and depends upon the autonomous sound.
VI
The specificity of the philosophy of music lies in a reflection upon the validity of the musical intentio recta. Since the intentio recta on music, in the last instance, aims at an aesthetic judgment, this means that the philosophy of music must reflect upon the validity of the aesthetic judgment about sounds.
This understanding of the task of the philosophy of music has the following consequences. First, a reflection on the validity of a judgment must establish to what the judgment lays claim. In the case of the musical judgment, the claim has been articulated above: the aesthetic judgment claims to be valid with regard to the autonomous sound. This claim is the starting point for the philosophical argumentation. The second step is the articulation of how this claim can be fulfilled. The answer is: the claim of the musical judgment is fulfilled if it truly is about a musical work. For the autonomous sound is a sound complex that can be grasped under the aspect of the concinnity of its self-regulation, and the traditional name of such an autonomous complex of sounds is the musical work. The claim of the musical judgment to autonomous sounds leads to the musical work as that which fulfills this claim. This opens the realm of validity within which the philosophy of music operates. The philosophical argumentation must, by consequence, explicate what the fulfillment of the musical judgment’s claim would amount to, that is what the musical work is. This understanding of the philosophical task has an important consequence. According to this methodological conception, the musical work of art is not something that the philosophy of music can take to be given. If it was so, the philosophy of music could treat it directly, in an intentio recta. But the methodological order above goes beyond the intentio recta in order to perform an intenio obliqua. Only within the reflection on musical validity does the notion of the musical work appear as the subject matter of the philosophical investigation. The philosophical investigation cannot take the musical work for granted, but must take it as the task it receives from the aesthetic judgment if this judgment’s claim is to be fulfilled. This is the precise meaning of the claim that the musical work is the task of the philosophy of music.
This methodological insight gives the philosophical argumentation a peculiar shape. On the one hand, the musical work is a certain kind of being. The articulation of its way of being takes therefore the form of an ontology of music. On the other hand, the musical work only makes its appearance as a task of the philosophy of music. It is a kind of being which is not given to thought, but which presents a task for thinking. This changes how an ontology of music must proceed. It becomes an ontology of something that is not given but which exists as a demand upon thought. The ontology in question is bound to this demand, thus it is a bound ontology.17 The alternative to a bound ontology is a free ontology. A free ontology claims to directly grasp – by an intentio recta – the being it explains. A bound ontology, however, operates under a condition that precedes it. Our reflection on the validity of musical judgments has shown that a free ontology of the musical work is not possible. It must be replaced by an ontology of the musical being that is bound to a condition: the condition of reflecting upon the aesthetic judgment about sounds in which the artwork appears as that which fulfills the claim of this very judgment. We can therefore reformulate the task of the philosophy of music: it is the task of articulating the musical work within the framework of an ontology that is bound to the aesthetic judgment. Such an ontology can be called an aesthetic ontology.
Like any ontology, an aesthetic ontology must make use of a certain number of ordering operators. As the ontology in question is bound to a form of judgment, these ordering operators stem from the concepts that guide the judgments about beings in general. Such concepts are the conditions under which any further articulation of the ordering operators of musical beings can proceed. In Kantian terms, these conditioning concepts can be called ‘concepts of reflection’.18 They do not signify beings but rather certain coordinates that organize the investigation of beings. The most elementary pair of concepts of reflection is that of ‘form’ and ‘material’. The concept of form signifies how a being is determined, its determinateness; the concept of material signifies the possibility of a being to be determined, its determinability. They correspond to the answers to the questions ‘What is this?’ and ‘What is this made of?’. Without these ordering operators, no being could be conceptually grasped in any way. That is why they are also the fundamental coordinates for investigating the musical work. Musical form and musical material do not designate beings but starting points for reflection on musical beings. Form and material are aspects of the musical being, that is, the musical work.
The first two ordering operators of the philosophy of music – form and material – are followed by ordering operators that do not merely organize the reflection upon beings, but which articulate their being as such. These second ordering operators are the categories of the musical work. They are found in the basic determination of the musical work as an autonomous complex of sounds. The notion of ‘sound’ implies the notion of something ‘audible’, and the ‘audible’ implies the notion of ‘time’. Hence, the first category of the musical work is musical time. The concept of musical time, however, leads to the notion of a musical space, and both together necessitate the notion of musical sense. Finally, the two aspects of form and material are connected by means of the category of the musical thought, which articulates the concinnity of the totality of the autonomous complex of sounds.
This progressive method by which philosophy differentiates the categories of the autonomous sound must be complemented by a regressive method by which these categories are given a determinate content. This shaping of the categories cannot succeed by merely reflecting upon the basic ordering operators, by a deduction of concepts so to speak, but must take up the findings articulated within music theory, music history and composition theory, and integrate them into a formulation and explication of the categories.19
VII
The reflection above has clarified the specificity of the philosophy of music. That philosophy is conditioned by the aesthetic judgment. In reflecting upon the validity of this judgment – upon the intentio recta which takes the form of a musical judgment – the musical work appears as its task. This leads to an ontology of music which is bound to the aesthetic judgment. At its core lies the claim that the musical being is the musical work.
In this way, the state of new music can be confirmed as that which determines musical thought. For in the ontology of the musical work, coherence is not just an external evaluation of a musical being but is worked into the being of the musical sound itself. Musical beings display concinnity or not. The concinnity of a musical work must be made intelligible by means of an inner articulation of the artwork. This articulation can be found in the distinction between the musical work’s aspects of form and material. Borrowing from Adorno, one can say that an autonomous complex of sound has concinnity if its form takes up the demands of its material. The musical material should thus not be understood as passive stuff, but as a realm of potentials containing certain demands. The demands of the material stem from its specific tendency. This tendency is not linear but is rather structured by negative relations in a double sense: on the one hand, the tendency is the negative relation between progress and restoration; on the other, it is the negative relation between the competing tendencies of progress. These negative relations generate the demands of the material. The tendency of the musical material therefore becomes decisive for the concinnity of the musical work. In order to think the musical work within a philosophy of music, one has to have made the experience of the state of the musical material. In the state of new music, the musical material might of course appear either positively or negatively. In any case, the specificity of the philosophy of music is inseparably tied to this experience of the state of new music.
Reason that is bound to the aesthetic judgment can be called aesthetic reason. The concept of a ‘philosophy of music from aesthetic reason’ ties philosophy to aesthetic judgment. The philosophy of music is thereby directed to the musical work and is in this way inseparably tied to the state of new music. This means that the philosophy of music can only succeed by reflecting upon the experience of this state. This does not mean that philosophy must accept it. Rather, it means that philosophy must relate the state of new music to the thought of the concinnity of sound as sound. Philosophy thinks musical production, musical reproduction and musical reflection within the horizon of the autonomy of sound; within the horizon of music’s being different from all heteronomies; within the horizon of its freedom.
Translation: Christoph Haffter
This text has previously been published in German: Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Wolfgang Fuhrmann (ed.), Perspektiven der Musikphilosophie, Suhrkamp, Berlin, 2021, pp. 43-58.
Notes
1 Hanns Eisler, ‘Über die Dummheit in der Musik’, Materialien zu einer Dialektik der Musik (Leipzig 1976), pp. 251–264.
2 Karl Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Berlin 1968), p. 551.
3 Dazu Günter Mayer, Weltbild – Notenbild: Zur Dialektik des musikalischen Materials (Leipzig 1978), pp. 248–348.
4 Theodor W. Adorno, Philosophie der neuen Musik, Gesammelte Schriften 12 (Frankfurt am Main 1975), p. 39.
5 Ève Chiapello and Luc Boltanski, Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme (Paris 1999).
6 Michel Foucault, ‘The Order of Discourse’, Untying the Text: A Post-structuralist Reader, ed. Robert Young (London 1981), p. 73.
7 Jim Igor Kallenberg, ‘Musik als Zeitgenossin’, lecture at the 4th Basler Forum for Musical Aesthetics, 2019.
8 David Burljuk et al., ‘Eine Ohrfeige dem öffentlichen Geschmack’, Welimir Chlebnikov, Werke, 2 (Hamburg 1985), p. 107f. – Dazu Gunnar Hindrichs, Philosophie der Revolution (Berlin 2017), p. 274.
9 For examples, see: Peter Kivy, Introduction to a Philosophy of Music (Oxford 2002), pp. 202–223 or Julian Dodds, Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology (Oxford 2007), as well as Kathleen Stock (ed.), Philosophers on Music: Experience, Meaning, and Work (Oxford 2007).
10 Matthias Vogel, ‘Nachvollzug und die Erfahrung musikalischen Sinns’, Musikalischer Sinn. Beiträge zu einer Philosophie der Musik, ed. Alexander Becker (Frankfurt am Main 2007), pp. 314–368. Also ‘Musik und Geste: Wahlverwandtschaft oder zufällige Liaison?’, Geste und Musik: Theorien, Ansätze, Perspektiven, ed. Katrin Eggers and Christian Grüny (Paderborn 2018), pp. 51–70. Vogel’s works stand in the context of a larger systematic project. This is outlined in Medien der Vernunft: Eine Theorie des Geistes und der Rationalität auf Grundlage einer Theorie der Medien (Frankfurt am Main 2001).
11 Hans Wagner, Philosophie und Reflexion, Gesammelte Schriften 1 (Paderborn 2013), pp. 61–70.
12 For Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, the basic theme of musicology is the determination of musical thinking; see Musikalisches Denken: Aufsätze zur Theorie und Ästhetik der Musik (Heinrichshofen 1977).
13 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, Schriften I (Frankfurt am Main 1960), pp. 511 and 524.
14 Ibid., 368–371 (§§ 170–178).
15 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 150–152 (Akademieausgabe). In making the connection between Wittgenstein and Kant I follow Peter F. Strawson, ‚Imagination and Perception‘, Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays (London 1974), pp. 45–65.
16 This thought underpins Pierre Schaeffer’s concept of acousmatic hearing in Traité des objets musicaux : Essais interdisciplines (Paris 1966), pp. 93–99.
17 Dazu Rudolf Zocher, Die philosophische Grundlehre. Eine Studie zur Kritik der Ontologie, Tübingen 1939, sowie ders., Kants Grundlehre. Ihr Sinn, ihre Problematik, ihre Aktualität, Erlangen 1959.
18 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 260-268 = B 316-324.
19 I have presented a corresponding theory in Gunnar Hindrichs, Die Autonomie des Klangs: Eine Philosophie der Musik (Berlin 2014). From a musicological point of view, the autonomy of the sound is opposed to a heteronomy of the music. See Nikolaus Urbanek and Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann (eds.), Von der Autonomie des Klangs zur Heteronomie der Musik: Musikwissenschaftliche Antworten auf Musikphilosophie (Stuttgart 2018). They do not explain what the musical aspect of a music that is proud of its lack of freedom consists of. The musicological resentment against autonomy goes back at least to Heinrich Besseler, ‘Grundfragen des musikalischen Hörens’, Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters (1925), pp. 35–52. In truth, for methodological reasons historical musicology meets the philosophy of music precisely in the concept of autonomous sound. See Gunnar Hindrichs, ‘Das musikalische Kunstwerk als Idealtyp europäischer Musik’, Europäische Musik – Musik Europas, ed. Otfried Höffe and Andreas Kablitz, Schriftenreihe des Arbeitskreises Europa der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung III (Paderborn 2017), pp. 11–30.
