Reflection And Exploration On "Philosophy Of Music"

Since the seventh edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians was replaced the title of "Aesthetics of Music" with "Philosophy of Music" and Yu Runyang’s Introduction to the Philosophy of Modern Western Music’s afterword which have sparked heated discussion among scholars.Prior to this,Chinese domestic academic circles have already begun to discuss “philosophy of music”.In 1981,He Qiansan published "What is Musical Aesthetics--A Preliminary Study on The Object of Musical Aesthetics" in The Journal of The Central Conservatory of Music,showing various views on musical philosophy in the early academia of musical aesthetics.Published in The Journal of Music Study in early 2020 "A Discussion of Music Aesthetics and Music Philosophy",hosted by Wang Cizhao,Han Zhong’en,Luo Yifeng,Song Jin,Huang han-hua four professors to participate,to write musical aesthetics and musical philosophy curriculum guide,for the purpose of discussing the musical aesthetics and musical philosophy subject relations and other issues.Taking the two papers as begin and end,this paper argues that in the past 40 years,the understanding of "musical philosophy" in China’s academia has experienced a process of budding,developing,enlarging and maturing,gradually changing from "musical aesthetics is musical philosophy" to two disciplines with same origin but differences.This paper mainly adopts the methods of philosophy and history and mainly relies on literature to think about the discussion of "musical philosophy".Taking the entry of“Philosophy of Music " in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as the object,this paper analyzes its content and considers the internal motive force and external cause of its title change.Then it introduces the musical philosophy of four contemporary Anglo-American Analytical philosophers--Peter Kivy,Nelson Goodman,Jerrold Levinson and Stephen Davis as reference for thinking.Then,starting from Chinese musicologist Yu Runyang,and his book Introduction to Modern Western Philosophy of Music,this paper explores the understanding of " philosophy of music " in Chinese music aesthetics and the similarities and differences between Chinese and Anglo-American academic in the development of " music aesthetics " and " philosophy of music.The relationship between music aesthetics and music philosophy can be divided into five parts: Music aesthetics must have philosophical foundation,Music aesthetics needs the character of speculating,Music philosophy should involve perceptual knowledge,Music philosophy provides transcendence spirit and How to keep the discipline purity of music aesthetics.First of all,it needs to be clarified that the philosophy of music has the meta-theory nature of the ontological study of the discipline of music aesthetics.The problems of philosophy of music touch on the discipline ontological study of music aesthetics,and further explain that music aesthetics must have a philosophical basis.Musical aesthetics needs the character of thinking to develop further from the philosophical foundation of musical aesthetics,the study of musical aesthetics is bound to use rational thinking to discuss.Philosophy of music should involve perceptual knowledge,what is perceptual? What is rationality? The relationship between perceptual knowledge and rational expression;Further,this paper considers the inseparable relationship between philosophy as a "science of reason" and aesthetics as a "study of sensibility".Of course,philosophy of music provides transcendental spirit,which is the meaning of this thesis and will be elucidated.To carry out the research of this topic,not only enables us to clarify the historical context of "philosophy of music" and recognize the relationship between philosophy and music,but also helps to strengthen the understanding of the nature and object of the discipline of music aesthetics,so as to make our own efforts for the possibility of the benign development of the discipline.