Music, Philosophy, and Modernity

Modern philosophers generally assume that music is a problem to which philosophy ought to offer an answer. Andrew Bowie’s Music, Philosophy, and Modernity suggests, in contrast, that music might offer ways of responding to some central questions in modern philosophy. Bowie looks at key philosophical approaches to music ranging from Kant, through the German Romantics and Wagner, to Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Adorno. He uses music to re-examine many current ideas about language, subjectivity, metaphysics, truth, and ethics, and he suggests that music can show how the predominant images of language, communication, and meaning in contemporary philosophy may be lacking in essential ways. His book will be of interest to philosophers, musicologists, and all who are interested in the relation between music and philosophy.

• Proposes an original approach to the understanding of music • Considers many largely neglected and untranslated texts • Offers new ways of questioning the predominant ideas about language in the analytical tradition of philosophy

Introduction; 1. Form, feeling, metaphysics, and music; 2. Music, language, and the origins of modernity; 3. Rhythm and Romanticism; 4. Hegelianism and music; 5. Music and the subjects of Romantics; 6. Music, freedom, and the critique of metaphysics; 7. Pro and contra Wagner; 8. Music, language and being: Wittgenstein and Heidegger; 9. Adorno: musical philosophy or philosophical music?; Conclusion.