Music And What It Is Like: What A Phenomenology Of Perception Tells Us About The Experience Of Music
Date of Award
2016-01-01
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Philosophy
Advisor(s)
Jules Simon
Abstract
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op.125 is one of his most brilliant and influential musical compositions. However, at the time that he writes his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven is completely deaf. Beethoven exhibits a unique situation where his mind is unaffected in its ability to continue creating new music even though his body is effected in its ability to experience music. Theories of mind, like reductive physicalism and non-reductive dualism, offer a way of understanding Beethoven's conscious experiences of music in relation to physical or non-physical information about mental phenomena associated with conscious experience. Yet, these theories of mind are unable to fully explain conscious experience because there is information about conscious experience that eludes physical and non-physical information about mental phenomena associated with conscious experience because conscious experience does not depend on the mind. Rather, a phenomenological approach to conscious experience reveals information about conscious experience that is only available because of the body. Through a phenomenology of perception, we can understand how it is that the body provides information about conscious experience that makes it possible to understand how a deaf Beethoven is able to continue to participate in the world of music as a composer, but not as a listener.
Language
en
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
Copyright Date
2016
File Size
54 pages
File Format
application/pdf
Rights Holder
Chavah Schwartz
Recommended Citation
Schwartz, Chavah, "Music And What It Is Like: What A Phenomenology Of Perception Tells Us About The Experience Of Music" (2016). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 750.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/open_etd/750