Music, Philosophy, and Modernity

Modern European Philosophy

by Andrew Bowie

Modern philosophers generally assume that music is a problem to which philosophy ought to offer an answer. Andrew Bowie's Music, Philosophy, and Modernity suggests, in contrast, that music might offer ways of responding to some central questions in modern philosophy. Bowie looks at key philosophical approaches to music ranging from Kant, through the German Romantics and Wagner, to Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Adorno. He uses music to re-examine many ideas about language, subjectivity, metaphysics, truth and ethics, and he suggests that music can show how the predominant images of language, communication, and meaning in contemporary philosophy may be lacking in essential ways. His book will be of interest to philosophers, musicologists, and all who are interested in the relation between music and philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, Music

444 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2007

About the author

Andrew S. Bowie (born 1952) is Professor of Philosophy and German at Royal Holloway, University of London and Founding Director of the Humanities and Arts Research Centre (HARC).

He has worked to promote a better understanding of German philosophy in the Anglophone analytical tradition - including the works of Johann Georg Hamann, Johann Gottfried von Herder, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas, Albrecht Wellmer and Manfred Frank.

Frank and Habermas have spoken highly of his work in this area - with Habermas calling his work "masterly" and Frank calling him an "exceptional scholar", whose work represents "the most knowledgeable presentation in English of the history of the German contribution to so-called continental philosophy". The philosopher Charles Taylor has described his work on music as "excellent and densely argued".

He has translated the works of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Friedrich Schleiermacher. His recent work has focused on music and philosophy, and Adorno on the nature of philosophy. In addition to his philosophical work on music, he is a keen jazz saxophonist and has played with leading contemporary jazz musicians such as Al Casey and Humphrey Lyttelton.

He did his doctoral research on "History and the Novel" (1980) at the University of East Anglia, where he was taught by the renowned German writer and scholar W. G. Sebald (who later cited Bowie's work on Alexander Kluge in his Campo Santo). He studied German philosophy at the Free University of Berlin. He was Professor of Philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University until 1999. He was also Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Philosophy department of Tübingen University. He is on the Advisory Council for the Institute of Philosophy.

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trying to put music in the context of philosophy/philosophy in the context of music almost seems unnecessary. Music is from the heart. It's an interesting read but I was more hoping for an education of in ideas with regard to interpreting music. My error.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

How many more times, though, are you going to, though, insert ‘though’, when you, though, have already done it, though, more than fifty times, though, in just thirty pages, though. Do you, though, wish to sound, though, rigorous or dumb, though. Your style, though, is absolutely awful, though.