Philosophy and Music

 Philosophy and Music

The basic question of the paper is “What does music do?”  Implicit in this question is also the question of how music does what it does.  The assignment for the final paper is to provide a thorough, well-argued, well-supported response to these concerns.

Informing these concerns are three strains of thought we have discussed in class.  The philosophers we have read have offered various of their own responses to these questions; the chapters from Kivy investigate the philosophical relationship between music and emotion; the chapters from Levitin investigate how the brain experiences music.  These three strains of thought should provide support, points of comparison, and points of departure for your discussion.

But more than what these philosophers’ positions are, this paper is about your position.  Your discussion should address how your position with regard to music is informed by or different than at least three of our philosophers (Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche, the chapter on Ideology, and Burke), should place your position somewhere on the spectrum of formalism to non-formalism that Kivy discusses, and also tie-in how your position is informed by Levitin’s presentation of the brain’s experience of music.  Each time you reference one of these works (either by means of a direct quote or paraphrase), you must give a parenthetical citation: (author’s last name, page number).  You ought also to use various specific examples from music you listen to as examples supporting your position.

The paper must be 6-9 double-spaced pages typed in a 12-point Times New Roman (or similar) font.  While no sources outside sources are required, if you do choose to use one or more for any reason, they must be noted in a works cited page.  If you do not present any outside sources no works cited page is required.