Reification, Music And Problems Of Contemporary Aesthetics

REIFICATION, MUSIC AND PROBLEMS OF CONTEMPORARY AESTHETICS Dr Jonathan Lewis, University of Cambridge

Headline This book examines the possibilities for the rehabilitation of aesthetics within contemporary philosophy. Pitch The principal objective of my study is to re-evaluate the philosophical significance of aesthetics in the context of contemporary debates on the nature of philosophy. My main argument is that contemporary conceptions of meaning and truth have been reified, and that aesthetics is able to articulate why this is the case, with important consequences for understanding the horizons and nature of philosophical inquiry. Key Features and Benefits     

Provides a new account of the concept of reification based on contemporary philosophical debates; Sets out an innovative case for how pragmatism, phenomenology and hermeneutics can expand the horizons of contemporary aesthetics; Incorporates aesthetic insights in order to extend recent pragmatist and phenomenological critiques of reductionist accounts of truth and meaning; Contributes to the growing body of work that aims to bring analytic philosophy into dialogue with more European/Continental traditions; Provides a thorough, yet jargon-free, introduction to the problems facing theoretical and practical engagements with aesthetic issues.

Keywords ‘Reification’, ‘Music’, ‘Aesthetics’, ‘Philosophy of Language’, ‘Pragmatism’, ‘Phenomenology’, ‘Hermeneutics’, ‘Analytic philosophy’, ‘Continental philosophy’, ‘Heidegger’, ‘Adorno’, ‘Wittgenstein’, ‘Gadamer’, ‘Postmodernism’, ‘Musicology’, ‘Wagner’. Synopsis My main argument is that philosophical attempts to demystify the ‘nature’ of art have led to the reification of aesthetic meaning and truth. The reason for this is because philosophical understanding of art depends upon the prior sense made by our concrete aesthetic experiences, a sense that is lost when attempts are made to subsume aesthetic practices beneath a unified philosophical theory. Consequently, I challenge the most emphatic and problematic conceptions of meaning and truth in both

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analytic philosophy and ‘postmodern’ thought by acknowledging the ontological and logical primacy of our practical engagements in the world. This involves thinking about meaning and truth in terms of historicallymediated, social norms as opposed to independent and isolable entities that are, in a sense, ‘given’ or ‘present’. I show how norm-based conceptions of aesthetic truth help us to understand the aesthetic realm as disclosive of the changing constellations of subjective and objective and the different ways we make sense of the world. This way of thinking about the aesthetic realm allows us to compare it to other forms of ‘making sense’, including philosophy. That the results of such sense-making cannot be encapsulated in a definitive philosophical theory is, I argue, precisely what should lead to the re-evaluation of the philosophical significance of aesthetics. Table of Contents Introduction: Philosophy, Music and Aesthetics Chapter One: Reifying Art Chapter Two: Interpreting Wagner Chapter Three: Beyond Analytic Aesthetics Chapter Four: Musical Analyticity and Postmodern Aesthetics Chapter Five: Reification and Relativism Conclusion Chapter-by-Chapter Synopsis Introduction: Philosophy, Music and Aesthetics (10,000 words, plus 2,000 words of notes) The issues outlined in the synopsis will be characterized in a form accessible to the intended readership, concentrating, in particular, on the way in which the concept of reification is still central to debates in contemporary philosophy. By providing a new account of the nature of reification, I explain how postmodern approaches to aesthetics compare with those in analytic philosophy. I discuss problems with both forms of aesthetic reflection and detail how the subsequent chapters will extend ideas raised in the introduction. Chapter One: Reifying Art (15,000 words, plus 3,000 words of notes) In chapter one I develop my account of the relationship between reification and aesthetics through the work of Martin Heidegger and Theodor W. Adorno in order to offer a vision for a non-reified engagement with aesthetic praxis. I show that once we distance ourselves from theoretical attempts to characterize the object ‘music’ and start, instead, to make sense of actual musical practices, then music can be conceived as an inherently meaningful phenomena that discloses the worlds in which it is created, performed and received. I conclude by illustrating how a worlddisclosive account of the work of art is crucial to metaphysics. Chapter Two: Interpreting Wagner (17,500 words, plus 2,500 words of notes) The

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interpretation of aesthetic practices. By engaging with recent debates on Wagner’s music dramas, chapter two illustrates how norm-based accounts of aesthetic meaning can challenge some of the classic conceptions of meaning in analytic aesthetics. Drawing on the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, as well as what I see to be related ideas in the work of Robert Brandom, Huw Price, Albrecht Wellmer and Ludwig Wittgenstein, what this chapter seeks to clarify is the idea that interpretations of aesthetic experiences matter within a space of historically-mediated, social norms. By engaging with Wittgenstein’s account of rule-following, I demonstrate how our interpretations of aesthetic practices can either articulate norms or go against them. I conclude that norm-transcending practices can themselves become normalized through historical changes that they helped initiate. Chapter Three: Beyond Analytic Aesthetics (9,500 words, plus 2,000 words of notes) Having attempted to make sense of the normative basis of aesthetic meaning in chapter two, the third chapter considers how traditional theories of meaning in aesthetics are related to the concept of reification. I argue that philosophical theorizing about art and artworks both presupposes and affirms meaning realism. I provide a challenge to such a way of thinking about aesthetic meaning through engagement with W. V. O. Quine and Donald Davidson’s respective critiques of the ‘dogmas of empiricism’. Turning to recent discussions in analytic philosophy on the disclosive aspects of language, I conclude by both affirming and expanding upon the relationship between norms and aesthetic meaning. Chapter Four: Musical Analyticity and Postmodern Aesthetics (13,500 words, plus 1,000 words of notes) Having focused on the philosophical problems surrounding the association between aesthetics and reification, the fourth chapter examines the relationship in the context of critical musicology. I begin by articulating the widespread narrative concerning the development of twentieth-century musicology. This ‘story’ involves the emergence of the ‘New Musicology’ from a disciplinary environment of ‘positivistic’ research and ‘formalist’ analysis. I go on to demonstrate how ‘postmodern’ musicology can be viewed, on the one hand, as overcoming the reifying impulses of its ‘modernist’ past. On the other hand, I show that postmodern musicologists have articulated a relativized conception of truth based on a performative contradiction. Chapter Five: Reification and Relativism (23,000 words, plus 1,000 words of note) This chapter shows how the ‘postmodern’ turn in aesthetics can be understood in the wider theoretical context of twentieth-century European philosophy. By engaging with philosophical critiques of cultural relativism, I call into question the more emphatic and problematic claims attributed to postmodern theory. Subsequently, I argue that after reifying and relativizing approaches to aesthetic truth, what is to be valued about artistic practices is their ability to create new ways of making sense that

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provide an opportunity for critical engagement with aesthetic, social and philosophical norms. Conclusion (5,000 words) The conclusion provides a summary of the relationship between aesthetic practice and truth. I bring together key issues in the book to show that art can question what is considered to be aesthetically, philosophically and socially true. I conclude that art is both world-disclosive and critical. Category of Book and Readership Level This is a scholarly monograph that makes a notable contribution to issues concerning aesthetics, metaphysics, metaphilosophy, philosophical method and the so-called analytic-Continental divide in contemporary philosophical practice. It is suitable for undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and researchers in these fields. Market and Readership As demonstrated by recent international conferences organized by the Royal Musical Association, the American Musicological Society, The British Society of Aesthetics and The American Philosophical Association, there is a growing research community in the US, Europe and the UK that is concerned with exploring the interactions between philosophy and art. This book arrives at a time when philosophers, musicologists, practitioners, literary theorists and art historians are debating new aesthetic problems. It will, therefore, be of interest to those engaging with aesthetic questions and will serve as an important text for undergraduates and postgraduates sitting papers in aesthetics and the philosophy of art Intended to form part of the ever-expanding body of work devoted to bringing analytic philosophy into dialogue with more European traditions, this book would also interest academics, graduates and undergraduates in philosophy who are even minimally concerned with the nature of philosophy and the problems surrounding the ‘analytic-continental divide’. Furthermore, by articulating the relationship between aesthetics and certain aspects of European philosophy, this book will be part of a growing body of work on the nature of aesthetic practice. From a multi-disciplinary perspective, this book is arriving in an area of rapid expansion of interest resulting from disciplinary shifts in analytic philosophy, European philosophy and musicology. Comparison with Other Work Albrecht Wellmer has incorporated aesthetic insights into his discussions of modern philosophy. However, he does not explain how the aesthetic dimension can impact upon the nature of both philosophical and musicological inquiry. Similarly, although Robert Brandom, Steven Crowell, Sean D. Kelly, John McDowell, Robert B. Pippin, Huw Price, Charles Taylor and Mark Wrathall have brought analytic philosophy into dialogue with more European traditions, what is lacking in their work is a discussion of the contribution that art and artworks can make to that dialogue. Very few analytic aestheticians have attempted to discuss aesthetic issues in the ways I make clear throughout this study. The exception is Aaron Ridley, whose Wittgenstein-inspired critique of analytic aesthetics

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attempts to locate this specialized branch of analytic philosophy in relation to nineteenth-century formalist aesthetics. I extend Ridley’s critique of analytic aesthetics by suggesting how recent debates in analytic philosophy actually help shed light on aesthetic practices without having to adopt dogmatic and antiquated philosophical methods. From a musicological point of view, a critique of the discipline’s relationship to postmodernism has been developing through the work of Kofi Agawu, Karol Berger, Mark Berry, Nicholas Cook, Mark Everist, Paul Harper-Scott, Björn Heile, Giles Hooper and Alastair Williams. By constructing a dialogue between analytic philosophy and postmodern thought, my book will provide the theoretical rationale to support and extend that critique. I also articulate the problems surrounding the truth and legitimacy of ‘postmodern’ practices, thereby extending debates on the nature and horizons of philosophy. In terms of reification, much of what has been written about the concept has been confined to philosophically-inspired social criticism within Marxist traditions. Even Axel Honneth, who begins his work with Adorno and Heidegger’s respective accounts of reification, has not discussed the aesthetic relevance of reification nor its applicability to certain contemporary forms of philosophical praxis. Consequently, my study provides a new account of the concept in order to illustrate how it is central to contemporary debates within philosophy. Book Length and Diagrams The book is 95,000 words in length, with an additional 16,000 words of endnote and bibliographical material. It includes six black and white extracts of music. At present these are scanned images from various secondary texts. However, they could be easily recreated with a more uniform style. The musical scores in relation to Richard Wagner are all part of the public domain. Permission will need to be sought to reproduce the score extracts from works by Richard Strauss. Writing Schedule to Delivery of Complete Typescript The manuscript is complete and has not been submitted to any other press. The Author Jonathan Lewis is a Supervisor for the Faculty of Philosophy, College Lecturer and Lecturer for the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge. He previously lectured at the Department of Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. He completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of London having undertaken degrees at King’s College, London and the University of Cambridge. He has published on issues in aesthetics, metaphysics and the philosophy of language, including research on philosophical method, pragmatism, the nature of truth, and the work of G.W.F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is, currently, working on a new project entitled The Phenomenological and Pragmatic World: Reclaiming Speculative Metaphysics and Aesthetics.

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