Music, Science, Philosophy: Models in the Universe of Thought

by Kassler,Jamie C.

• ISBN13: 9780860788621
• ISBN10: 0860788628
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-11-28
• Publisher: Variorum

Summary

This book stresses the interrelatedness of knowledge by extricating models that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. For example, science can find models from the technology and semantic field of music, music can find its models from the technology and semantic field of science, and each domain may be guided by a philosophical or metaphysical principle - thus, the title of the book. But the book itself is structured as a mirror image of its title. Chapters 1-6 provide instances of the role of music in such domains as epistemology and logic, as well as in the early modern sciences of developmental biology, continuum mechanics, anatomy and physiological psychology, whereas Chapters 7-10 provide instances of what some other domains of knowledge have given back to the philosophy and theory of music.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Acknowledgments	xiv
Apollo or Dionysus? Music and the Growth of Knowledge	1	(20)
A Conjunction of Concepts: Music and the Emergence of Probability	21	(28)
Making Inferences: Music and the Mechanisation of Logic	49	(12)
The Ovum as Initial Datum: Harvey, Starting Points and Creativity	61	(22)
On the Stretch: Hobbes, Mechanics and the Shaking Palsy	83	(42)
Blowing the Organ: Willis, Hydro-pneumatics and Hierarchy	125	(40)
The Science of Music to 1830	165	(36)
Music as Matter in Motion	201	(22)
Music as Unfolding Life	223	(42)
The Problem of `Musical Ear'	265	(30)
Index	295