KIVY:INTRODUCTION TO A PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC PAPER

by Peter Kivy

Philosophy of music has flourished in the last thirty years, with great advances made in the understanding of the nature of music and its aesthetics. Peter Kivy has been at the center of this flourishing, and now offers his personal introduction to philosophy of music, a clear and lively explanation of how he sees the most important and interesting philosophical issues relating to music. Anyone interested in music will find this a stimulating introduction to some fascinating questions and ideas.

Genres: Music, Philosophy, Nonfiction

295 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Tom Klinge]

Wil heel graag in de muziekfilosofie niche duiken maar dit was echt (op een handjevol punten na) weinig boeiend.

[Carol]

This book is not a survey of current thought or works on the philosophy of music. Instead, it is an introduction Kivy's own approach to the philosophy and aesthetics of music. He takes on familiar topics such as whether or not music can represent anything, how it can embody or contain emotion, and what music signifies. Kivy largely adheres to formalism, with some qualifications based in how people really experience music. I found his arguments pretty convincing, although I do have some quibbles with a few of the minor points. Kivy's prose and the way he explains his thinking is always clear and easy to follow, even when he is explicating the more complicated concepts.

[Kev Nickells]

Yeah so the story is that I read this on my Philosophy undergraduate, decades ago. It was pretty critical to my dissertation, a dissertation that would not be described as 'critical'.

I feel fairly lukewarm towards this book now. I wouldn't say it was bad and I'd say it does what it sets out to. The problem for me is that it's a fairly limited corpus - Kivy is very much establishing the notion of 'philosophy of music' as anchored to European classical music. That is, of course, predictable given that Western philosophy is anchored likewise.

I'm increasingly not an analytic philosopher (if I'd describe myself as a philosopher at all) and this book is exemplary of my reasoning; in order to establish clarity of reason the corpus of analysis is typically reduced to the fewest possible variables. This is, again, sensible - if you start trying to write about everything, you'll never get started. So limiting the 'philosophy of music' to European (so-called) 'classical' music, and specifically 'absolute' music (that is, instrumental) is a reasonable limitation. The problem, or a problem, is that music as a cultural phenomenon is incredibly broad.

There's a specific problem to Kivy's argument given the breadth of music in general - he's keen to dismiss 'representationalism' as a qualia of music. And with a degree of breadth representationalism is imperative - traditions of animal imitation (present in Central Asian, first nation Canadian traditions), the likes of musique concrete / sound art and other avant-garde movements push very much towards representation. Philosophically this makes no reference to the Frankfurt school 'art in the age of mechanical reproduction' and that bears down on Kivy's dismissal of representationalism.

His point, perhaps, remains after that - where it's alluring to think of absolute music as 'representing' whatever, the line between the thing represented and the representation is murky. But for me, it's murky - in the same way that 20th-century art has factions dismissing representationalism (and, to the contrary, photography explodes what that fidelity in representation means).

Kivy does move towards a point of a kind of semantic understanding of 'the philosophy of music' but it's conspicuously voided of a kind of sociological logic that would've come from involving the Frankfurt school in this discussion.

But zooming out a bit - my personal misgivings aside, this is a book in the analytic tradition and it does purport to be philosophy rather than sociology. If it's considered a speculative work about the problematics of a philosophy of music then it's fine. I think a more modern approach would recognise its limitations (that is, using solely the limited and problematic corpus of European 'classical') and I'd also presume that the many works in post-colonial musicology would be useful. But as an outline or speculation towards a philosophy of music, it's perfectly servicable, especially for an undergraduate.

[Marjorie Jensen]

reread and quoted this when writing about Symphony of Secrets

[Derek]

This is a thought provoking introduction to Kivy's philosophy of music. I walked away with the conclusion that music is enjoyable because of the thought we put into it, and the further thoughts it invokes as we explore. Kivy really likes commas.

[Paulette Gerkovich]

I can't finish reading a book that gets Plato so WRONG. I just kept wondering what else he'd gotten wrong. So I put it down after 10-15 pages.

[Clive Buckingham]

Pretty heavy stuff, from the angle of a real philosopher. It follows one conceptual thread throughout, which can be a little wearing. Rewarding, but not an easy read.

[Peter]

i guess i buy what he's saying. extremely readable, although i disagree with his history of music and philosophy that he paints