Kolomiets Galina, PhD Russia, Orenburg State University

About the main problem of Philosophy of Music

As since ancient times «Philosophy» has been understood as «inquisitiveness», then the philosophy of music can be determined as «inquisitiveness» in grasping music, musical being or strive to experience and comprehend the science about a man in the world of music and about music in the word the of a man. If to understand the subject of Philosophy , as an intricate combination of subject – object relations in broad sense, in all hypostases of being then the subject of Philosophy of music can be determined as subject – object relationship in the system: man – world – music. The Philosophy of music studies questions broadening on general philosophical problems and the relations between subjects: Aesthetics, Ethics, Music, Psychology, etc. For instance, such questions as music and human word, the world of culture, the nature of music, the origin, of musical art, the way of existence of music concern the Philosophy of music. In the sight of the discipline is the study of the history of the concept «music», the history of philosophical thought about music. Such global categories as «Worlds», «Universe», «Being», «Consciousness» are connected with the Philosophy of music. The main point of Philosophy of music directly concerns the matter of the discipline «Philosophy of music» answering the question what it studies.

The subject of «Philosophy of music» is musical being first as it is, as it, can be and as it is realized. Philosophical comprehension of phenomenon of music is possible in ontological and gnosiological status, the light of axiology and philosophical anthropology, sociology and culturology.

The main point of «Philosophy of Music» is comprehension of musical being in two interconnected hypostases: music – substance and music – art as the way of valuable interaction of a man and the whole world. The phenomenon of music is seen as indissoluble unity of essence of music – musical substance where music is flowing world`s essence and of musical art belonging to man`s world. Still in the dawn of ancient philosophy in the man`s notion of music had two meanings. One of them was connected with musical practice, the other one, that was considered to be more important belonged to the theory of music and was connected with cosmology.

We should be astonished at surprising power of observation and curiosity of cosmologists in Ancient Greece when they were searching a single principle of being that would unite objects in the limits of mentality and show their interaction according to the general law of being. How is it possible to unite the beautiful and the terrible, the sublime and the vile in the human mind? The all embracing law according to which objects yield to organized reason was recognized the law of the unity of opposites – Harmony and for the Greece the concept of harmony was closely connected with music. The Greece watched and reproduced such quality of harmony as the combination of opposites in music, saw pattering to nature, to Cosmos in it. Human life itself with its changes, balancing between fortune and misfortune, joy and sorrow, sublimity and triviality, makes a kind of harmony, pendulum, rotation. This is a great Rhythm; Music is a rhythm first of all. That`s why in cosmological Aesthelics a circle is an ideal of the harmonious world, a ball is a symbol of the Universe in the whole and musical rhythm (singing and dancing, playing the lyre, aulos and flute), and moving of any “musical substance” (e.g. banding an anvil with a hammer that has been paid attention to by Pyphagor) were identified with music of celestial spheres. Pyphagor`s put forward the theory of “Harmony of spheres” as a very high musical harmony where Cosmos looked like a body harmonically organized and musically sounded.

Planets move making sounds but they move making sounds but they move because there is the highest principle of Harmony. Moving heavens sound like harmonious chard.¹ Musical harmony came from divinity and influenced a man, his soul and social being. That’s why to music as a science of art in ancient Philosophy has been given a great importance and cosmological value influencing people. With the help of musical creative work the Greeks treated , gave people’s souls a feeling of harmony with surrounding world, with cosmos since they believed that the loss of sensory harmony is the reason of body-disease.

Harmony as one of the main Platon’s concepts (according to Pyphagor) is interpreted by him in the cosmological, musical meaning reflecting human emotional condition: Harmony is a consonance and a consonance is a kind of agreement, but from each other it is impossible to achieve agreement. And again the developing and the uncoordinated can’t be led to Harmony, that can be seen in rhythm. And agreement is brought by the art of music that establishes like an art of healing love and unanimity…(Pyrr, p.187)… Harmony from tuned lyre is something invisible and bodiless, something beautiful and divine and the lyre itself, and strings are the gist of a body, bodily objects….close to death (Phedon, 85E- 86V).

Platon distinguished four sciences giving necessary knowledge, appealing to contemplation of true being. Common for these sciences is the science of calculation, computation, a number but nevertheless it is inseparable from aesthetic sphere, emotional sensation and intuitive knowledge and at the same time the science of mastering world’s values. These are the main sciences: 1) Arithmetics that brings a true benefit if used for knowledge but not for huckstering;

2)Geometry, because genuine Geometry gives an aspiration to the truth and makes the philosophical thought strive for the high into the air; 3) Astronomy that “makes a soul look at the high into the air and leads it there away from here”, helps to study being and the “invisible”, watches stars and planets as aids for studying true being; 4) Music, to be more exact, studies of musical harmony in which it’s true nature is opened not in comparison of sounds perceiving by ordinary ear, but with the help of ultrasensory origin. A true tune is comprehended through studying musician harmony, theory and Philosophy.

The Philosophy of Music by Platon appeared, on the hand, on the basis of Pyphagor’s cosmology and the harmony of number proportion and, on the other hand, on appealing of music to a man and a human community. So, studying the sensory side of music he said that music builds its consonance “not on the size but

1. Yamlih. About Pyphagor’s life. M: Aleteja, 2002, p. 165

on experience of sensivity, - such is the whole part of music concerning kipharistics because it string relying on guess, i.e. intuitively”.

Platon balances the relational origin and the sensory origin in music. More than that he determined criteria of artistic appreciation of musician art. The value of the work of art is stipulated by “what is represented, then if it is represented properly and third if any representation is performed well in words, tunes, rhythms.”² Anyhow, in the appreciation of a work of art including music a critic should consider the problems “what is expressed”, “if it is expressed properly” and “if it is good” concerning ideas of beauty aesthetic and ethic problems of content and form. In appealing to a man Platon determined the following functions of music.

As a part of soul cultivating a man and society: aesthetic, ethic, philosophical, hedonic, cognitive, communicative (collective choral singing), educational.

Out-of-historical essence of music (world harmony, Universe Rhythm) is represented in the man’s world and is expressed by him and music as in the brunch of art, musical activity. A man hears and chooses in the real world such musically expressive forms of cultural layer that meet his value orientation. “Mechanisms” for connection of flowing musical being, music-substance and man’s world are values of music and values in music, appealed on one hand, to the highest Sense and, on the other hand, to the sense of human being. Musical text as a symbol phenomenon describes a creative idea. What is contained in a musical text doesn’t coincide with what is behind the musical text but has been in the author’s mind and appears in performer’s mind and in the mind of people perceiving music eras‘ changes. That’s why interpretations are so individual and subjective. This is the problem of onthology of music.

According to A.Losev in music there is no past, there is only the present and its life, music time is not a form or a kind of flowing of events and phenomena of music but they are the events themselves in they truest onthological basis. Losev compared music with the eternal and infinity : “Eternity will be when not several moments but all innumerable moments of being coincide together, when … being doesn’t freeze in it’s ideal still but it will play by all the streams of its interpenetrating fluidity”³. Musical being is a solid substance, invariably flowing and expressing itself in every smallest period of time. No one art isn’t given definitions concerning the eternal and the infinity like music.

According to Losev the space of music and the time of music remind the life of a soul and it’s element as it has many times been described it’s flowing boundlessness by many mystics and philosophers. Music is a reflection of chaos, fluidity of a soul’s life. Life of music, according to Losev, is a life of numbers causing vibration of hearts, perceiving a musical event from the point of view of

1. Platon. Phileb // Platon. Comp. : In3 V.V.3.P.1, M.:Mysl., 1971 p.72

2. Platon. Laws // Platon. Comp. : In3 V.V.3.P.2, M.:Mysl., 1972 p.136

3. Losev A.Ph. Music as the subject of logic // From the earliest works. M., “Pravda”, 1990, p. 239

values. The other side of music is a myth born out of music. Every music has it’s corresponding myth. The structure of music itself predetermines the structure of myth quite precisely and definitely. From the point of view of aesthetic-axiological approach the completeness of mythological comprehension of music in comparison with musical-logical abstractions is very important. Here we should pay attention to the Losev’s believe in combination of myth and logic, in possibility, on one hand to describe, to be more precise, to comprehend philosophically using the arsenal of aesthetic categories, of vivid, sensory world, and, on the other hand, to follow strictly the logic, given by the product. Logos and myth constitute the deep basis of music and stipulate a double character of musical being. Music is an ideal being and at the same time it lives in the duration and tension of time. Music is the art of time. It is a continuous fluidity: instability, dynamism, explosiveness, tension and duration. This is a description of musical eidos according to its content, the eidos itself remains ideal in math sense of the world. Music according to Losev appears as an art of time at the bottom of which there are perfectly motionless numbers and that bursts into blossom with qualities of substantial movement. Music is an expression of divine substance (for Losev – divine Personality), a symbol, an expressive constructing of a number in mind, “a display” of a structure of a number, formed in time in mind. This formation is shown in musically-expressive means, in the richness of categories structure of “pure eidos”, “invisibly ruled” by music.

The theory and practice of music also advanced in comprehension of time essence of music. Nowadays we can’t deny spatial character of music. Since space is supposed to have existence and changing of objects, movement of physical bodies then music bearing a sound flow in space is capable to create the feeling of volume, of relief or consolidation and compression. Such sensation appears not only as a result of our illusions but it possesses spatialness as any physical phenomenon. Essence and phenomenon are two hypostases of musical being. Essence of music is contained in the World Harmony, Rhythm, in everlasting formation of flowing essence of the world and musical phenomena – this is our human world, that we live in and at the same time feel physical connection with the whole Universe. Performing composing and perceiving music we virtually concern musical substance the mystery of music itself.

Music as a flowing essence of the world and musical compositions bring a man knowledge about the world, about a man himself and about society. Here is the cognitive (gnoseological) value of music. Here music is a special form of cognition (apart from sensory and rational). Axiological aspect is supposed to consider musical being from the point of view of the theory of values, therefore artistic appraisal of the quality of musical activity (composition, performing, perceiving, criticism in the sphere of music) isn’t considered apart from essential Beauty. A very important anthropological problem is the problem of origin of music in society , its historical development, perception, creation inspiration, so far in the centre of philosophical – anthropological aspect there is “a musical human being” thinking aesthetically feeling “sound substance” and musical essence.

Galina Kolomiets, Russian Federation

The paper is based on the original study of Galina Kolomiets named «The conception of music value as a substance and as the way of value interaction between the person and the world» which is presented in the monograph “The music value: philosophical aspect”. The phenomenon of music is considered as the indissoluble unity of its two hypostases – the essence of music (musical substance) and musical skill, which belongs to the person and the world.

The basic idea of the author is to show, how the extra-historical essence of music (world harmony, universal rhythm) is connected with the man and the world and what are “the cohesion mechanisms” of musical substance as a form of art. According to the study such mechanisms are: the music value and value in the music, inverted, from one side, to the highest sense, from another - to the senses of human life.