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Philosophy: Musical knowing

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Reader Cas Saternos offers these thoughts in response to a post several weeks ago on knowing. The rest of this post is from him:

Your comments on the three stage or “moments” of knowing fit well with the use of the term “know” in the musical realm. Consider the phrase “I know that song.” Depending on the speaker and context, each of the three stages might be at the fore-front.

1) Used commonly to mean “I recognize the melody.” This fits with subject-object differentiation, knowing the object from a distance.

2) Spoken by a musician mean “I can perform or participate in a performance of that song.” This corresponds to subject-object union, knowing the object by indwelling it in love.

3) Spoken by a composer of one of his own compositions. The creation of a third from the union of subject and object, the formation of a fresh concept or insight begotten of the union with the object.

This also leads to some interesting lines of inquiry related to the personal nature of truth (rather than it being abstract and impersonal), and the epistemological implications of time, place and person for understanding the meaning of words.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, August 8, 2012 at 8:26 am

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Philosophy: Musical knowing

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