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Are There Styles of Music Not Compatible With Objectivism?

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14 minutes ago, Jonathan13 said:

Another possible explanation is that musical interpretations and tastes are subjective, and two different people who have very similar outlooks on life, similar "senses of life," and identical philosophical beliefs can interpret musical styles very differently due to each person necessarily having very different -- individual -- life experiences: they each relate any piece of music to their own personal experiences, as opposed to the idea that the same experiences should be communicated via an objective "conceptual vocabulary."

The same is true of the other abstract art forms, such as architecture, dance, abstract painting, etc.

J

I think that this is a subject we've touched on before, and I would like to do so with you again at some point. I'm not clear enough about what an "objective conceptual vocabulary" would entail to comment directly yet, but I think that we generally agree. My emotional reactions to art are bound to relate to my unique personal experiences, sense of life notwithstanding.

But do you think that Objectivists are bound to have the same sense of life (insofar as they are "integrated")?

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On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 1:04 PM, Jonathan13 said:

you seem to have a thing for accusing others of making "strawmen," but you don't seem to understand what the term means. It means to assign to your opponent a position that they don't hold, and then to beat up on that position

Yes, that is what a strawman is. lets look at some examples.

Person A sates:

Quote

One does not prove philosophical tenets the same way one does special science theory via "research" or "testing". All the facts necessary to validate a philosophical premise are ubiquitously available to anyone in any age.

And person B responds:

Quote

You can't get out of proving it by falsely asserting again that philosophy isn't like science and doesn't have to prove anything.

Equating:

"one does not prove philosophical tenets the same way"

with the false assertion:

"philosophy isn't like science and doesn't have to prove anything."

And then accusing person A of "trying to get out of proving" a philosophical tenet and conflating axioms with hierarchically dependent philosophical premises, is in fact a strawman!

 

Similarly, taking an invitation to debate another person, in another thread, on a premise that person made a positive claim on; as "bluffing and bluster" and hilariously, "a personal attack", is another instance of a strawman.

Do you consider the invitation lets "take it on the mat if you want to wrestle because your claim that your takedown technique is better than mine is bullshit" an instance of "bluffing" and "attacking" the person? Or is it an invitation to put ones skill on the mat where his mouth is?

Jonathan said:

On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 1:04 PM, Jonathan13 said:

Please, try to calm yourself. I wasn't building strawmen or proposing anything. I was ASKING QUESTIONS in order to clarify my understanding of what you're saying. See, questions are not statements. They are inquiries.

There is a disingenuous rhetorical device commonly deployed of using innuendo, in the form of a question, that presents the question as following same line of reasoning as your opponents premise. When that question does not correspond to the others premises, it is a type of rhetorical strawman often used to sway onlookers into branding the other persons ideas negatively .

An example:

Person A says:

"A rational man is selfish. The definition of selfishness is concern for ones own interest."

And person B says:

Yeah, so a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. is rational?"

You claim that was not your intention, so I will take you at your word. But lets not pretend that I don't know what a strawman is.

 

Jonathan said:

Quote

Indeed, but discussions always potentially involve some misunderstanding or confusion. It's a two-way street. You want to be better understood? Great, then make better arguments, make them more clearly, and, most important of all, provide proof to back them up.

Your failure to keep context is not a reflection on another's skill at expressing explicitly contrary claims to your strawmen.

I'll be back later to address the parts of your post which actually deal with the discussion at hand and its relation to my actual premises.

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On April 24, 2016 at 1:50 PM, DonAthos said:

I think that this is a subject we've touched on before, and I would like to do so with you again at some point. I'm not clear enough about what an "objective conceptual vocabulary" would entail to comment directly yet, but I think that we generally agree. My emotional reactions to art are bound to relate to my unique personal experiences, sense of life notwithstanding.

I really don't know what the proposed and hoped-for "objective conceptual vocabulary" of music could possibly entail, but it seems that it's supposed to be something like a language or mathematical equation: Certain arrangements/conbinations of musical elements -- notes, chords, rests, tempo, etc. -- are to add up to and communicate one specific meaning, allowing for no rational disagreement or differences in interpretation. In other words, the chord structure of G then D then C then back to G would equal the concept of, say, "contentment," just as the letters in the word "contentment" add up to and signify the concept "contentment," or just as the numerical elements of "3 plus 4 equals 7."

 

On April 24, 2016 at 1:50 PM, DonAthos said:

But do you think that Objectivists are bound to have the same sense of life (insofar as they are "integrated")?

No, they're not bound to have the same sense of life.

And the argument that others are not as well "integrated" philosophically is a illogical circular argument. How do we determine that someone is properly integrated? By looking at what we take to be their sense of life, and it's not matching out own? And, since we each self-judge ourselves as being properly integrated and having the proper sense of life, then everyone else who doesn't share ours is not properly integrated and has an inferior sense of life? Heh. That's not exactly objectivity in action. It skips right over the notion of proof and falsifiability, ignores the requirements of identifying, objectively measuring and applying clearly defined, rational standards, and actually proving one's position. In short, it sounds more like a defensive psychological maneuver attempting to disguise insecurity than anything else. And a transparent attempt at that! It's an old ploy, and suggests that its user is so inexperienced as to not recognize the inadvertent admission of naiveté that he's making in using it.

J

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21 hours ago, Plasmatic said:

Yes, that is what a strawman is. lets look at some examples.

Person A sates:

And person B responds:

Equating:

"one does not prove philosophical tenets the same way"

with the false assertion:

"philosophy isn't like science and doesn't have to prove anything."

And then accusing person A of "trying to get out of proving" a philosophical tenet and conflating axioms with hierarchically dependent philosophical premises, is in fact a strawman!

False.

You were asked to prove something; to back up statements and positions with research and testing. In response, rather than offering any proof, you asserted that one does not prove philosophical tenets the same way one does special science theory via research or testing.

Well, there is no other means of proving anything. What do you imagine that the concept “proof” means? You seem to be saying that there is some method other than scientific research and testing which can quality as proof. If that’s what you’re saying, then please identify what that method consists of. Please identify the non-scientific method of proof that you think philosophy employs in establishing its tenets.

There is no such method. Proof is proof. Therefore, when you stated that philosophy isn’t like science and doesn’t prove philosophical tenets in “the same way,” what that means, logically, is that one doesn’t have to prove anything in philosophy! See? Understand?

Meanwhile, you’ve written a lot on this irrelevant side-issue, but still haven’t provided any proof of the initial position that a sense of life, or any other emotional state, can be reliably integrated with a fully conscious and explicit philosophy.

 

 

21 hours ago, Plasmatic said:

 

Similarly, taking an invitation to debate another person, in another thread, on a premise that person made a positive claim on; as "bluffing and bluster" and hilariously, "a personal attack", is another instance of a strawman.

Do you consider the invitation lets "take it on the mat if you want to wrestle because your claim that your takedown technique is better than mine is bullshit" an instance of "bluffing" and "attacking" the person? Or is it an invitation to put ones skill on the mat where his mouth is?

Um, I think what you need to do is to review your own posts. Ever heard the old Swedish proverb, "Sweep first before your own door, before you sweep the doorsteps of your neighbors”? It means that you should apply your standards to yourself prior to applying them to others.

Let’s inspect a couple of example items from your doorstep:

"You appear to have been infected with the upside down view of philosophy.”

Oooh! INFECTED!!!

"Listen, if you want to debate the Oist conception of objectivity, start a thread on it. As it stands you don't appear familiar with it.”

That’s kind of bossy and snarly. Ordering me what to do! And there’s that unsupported claim that I don’t understand the Objectivist concept of “objectivtiy.” Notice that, after that false assertion of yours, I provided evidence to back up my position, and challenged you to refute it. You haven’t done so. Why not? You seem to have plenty of time to post here about side issues and other distractions. Maybe you should prioritize. Maybe try harder to focus on and address the main substance being discussed. Please, give it a try! Please get back to the substance instead of skirting it or postponing it. Back up your assertion that I’m not familiar with the Objectivist concept of “objectivity.” If you don’t, then your statement complies with the definitions of “bluff" and "bluster."

 

21 hours ago, Plasmatic said:

Jonathan said:

There is a disingenuous rhetorical device commonly deployed of using innuendo, in the form of a question, that presents the question as following same line of reasoning as your opponents premise. When that question does not correspond to the others premises, it is a type of rhetorical strawman often used to sway onlookers into branding the other persons ideas negatively .

An example:

Person A says:

"A rational man is selfish. The definition of selfishness is concern for ones own interest."

And person B says:

Yeah, so a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. is rational?"

You claim that was not your intention, so I will take you at your word. But lets not pretend that I don't know what a strawman is.

 

You don’t seem to know what a strawman is. You attempt to force inquiries into the category of strawmen. You infer negative judgments and disingenuousness where none exist. Answering the questions would be much simpler and more effective than all of this side-issue sensitivity and distractions stuff.

 

21 hours ago, Plasmatic said:

 

Jonathan said:

Your failure to keep context is not a reflection on another's skill at expressing explicitly contrary claims to your strawmen.

I'll be back later to address the parts of your post which actually deal with the discussion at hand and its relation to my actual premises.

 
The above is another example of your not sweeping your own doorstep first. It’s snarly, and has the vibe of your unwillingness to even consider the possibility that you might be contributing to others’ misunderstandings. The failure must be the fault of others! As I said, it’s a two-weay street. But you seem to like — perhaps even need — to believe otherwise.
 
Anyway, please do come back and address the actual substance and challenges that I’ve laid down for you. 
 
J
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34 minutes ago, Jonathan13 said:

And the argument that others are not as well "integrated" philosophically is a illogical circular argument. How do we determine that someone is properly integrated?

To be fair, I don't think anyone said that one's level of integration of some philosophy contributes to a superior sense of life, to the extent that consciously formed beliefs contribute to emotions. You can't investigate this in the same way as you would investigate physics, but we can still investigate this in a "scientific" way if we're careful about how we observe reality. Philosophical stances, like the role of emotions, help us figure out hypotheses we can make and then test the hypotheses. The scientific method is not the only way to understand the world objectively (otherwise, we would say the ancient Greeks had no objective knowledge at all about anything).

The point you should make, I think, is that even Rand said that your sense of life includes life experiences. Philosophical integration, whatever the philosophy might be, is only one portion of sense of life. That's why it's way too narrow to say that there is one Objectivist sense of life. You would have to erase personal experience.

In a way, that's what Buddhist monks do. They aim to live in emotional harmony, and to do that, among other things, they never listen to music, and on the way to enlightenment (essentially one type of sense of life), strive to lose their sense of self. If you ever met a monk, they are extremely similar to each other even in personality, accomplished by basically slowly erasing everything about their sense of life except philosophy. So, that's at least anecdotal evidence that philosophy contributes to a sense of life. If we ignored or try to "overcome" personal experience, we would become Buddhist monks, vowing to never listen to music again, becoming very similar to each other, reacting to everything in the same way. 

 

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21 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

To be fair, I don't think anyone said that one's level of integration of some philosophy contributes to a superior sense of life, to the extent that consciously formed beliefs contribute to emotions.

Well, certain members here have been saying that there is an Objectivist sense of life, and only one, and they've also tied that position to at least implicit statements about others not "integrating" the philosophy well enough, and have also sort of mimicked Rand and her old inner circle in advising others to "check their premises."

In other words, the behavior appears to be following the very typical tack of parroting Rand while posing as being highly moral, intellectually superior, and properly "integrated." But, at the same time, the proof is missing.

So, it looks like bluff and bluster, and the type that I've seen Objectivists attempt for decades.

Perhaps it's not. We'll see.

J

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Looking through this thread I note that not even Peikoff’s Mullet (love that handle) has gotten around to aping his namesake and denouncing atonal music.  He’s been known to class Schoenberg in with James Joyce and Wassily Kandinsky in his roll of dishonor.  Deliberate destroyers of legitimate art, and even of the conceptual faculty.

And, if we go back to art, there is liberated music, such as the atonal stuff of Schoenberg, which dispenses with harmonty and melody, and offers instead an unintelligible series of agitated dissonances.  The new music, said Schoenberg, and I quote:

“represents the emancipation of the dissonance.”

In other words, noise lib.

https://campus.aynrand.org/campus/globals/transcripts/ideas-in-history-objectivisms-relation-to-the-past-and-the-future

Pity he couldn’t work in an accurate explanation of what Schoenberg meant by that.  How about a sample of atonality in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFXkc9AGoeU

Maybe if you want to evoke the horror of the Holocaust, atonality is just the thing.  Of course the soundtrack to Schindler’s List pulled it off too, in its own way.  The point is that atonality is simply a tool, and even the composer of Schindler’s List has it in his kit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuQUEz8gkyw

There it’s only for about the first 30 seconds.  There are some tone clusters in there too, later, but Peikoff hasn’t gotten around to denouncing them yet.  Well, at least not that I’ve heard.

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9 hours ago, Jonathan13 said:

I really don't know what the proposed and hoped-for "objective conceptual vocabulary" of music could possibly entail, but it seems that it's supposed to be something like a language or mathematical equation: Certain arrangements/conbinations of musical elements -- notes, chords, rests, tempo, etc. -- are to add up to and communicate one specific meaning, allowing for no rational disagreement or differences in interpretation. In other words, the chord structure of G then D then C then back to G would equal the concept of, say, "contentment," just as the letters in the word "contentment" add up to and signify the concept "contentment," or just as the numerical elements of "3 plus 4 equals 7."

These are the points where I feel conflicted, and forgive me, please, as I stumble through in trying to express myself -- I wish I had the background and the knowledge to be able to advance a clear argument.

On the one hand, it seems ridiculous what you propose, that some combination of chords or notes would read so clearly as "contentment" that music could communicate in the manner of narrative. On the other hand, it seems to me that music does have the power to communicate some kind of meaning. I'm no musician, but musicians study -- don't they? -- to try to discover or refine the effects of their music, whether that's produced by changes in tempo or chord or timbre or etc. Is there nothing for them to discover?

I think it's asking too much to look for meaning in music such that there's no possibility for "rational disagreement or differences in interpretation" about a given piece (has such a standard been achieved for any art?), but I also think that an observation like "a rapid tempo conveys energy" or similar (not that I could defend any such thing; I'm just parroting what I remember overhearing from others) doesn't seem so outlandish.

Above, Ninth Doctor raised John Williams' score for Schindler's List. Perhaps it accounts in part to my familiarity with the subject matter of the film, but when I listen to that main theme, I find it beautiful and sorrowful -- mournful -- and... I think that's what Williams was reaching for. I think it's not an accident that he found it (being a very talented man). If he had produced something akin to his Superman theme for Schindler's List, instead, I think that everyone in this thread (at least) would recognize that there was something mismatched between the theme and subject matter.

Is that meaningful? It seems meaningful to me.

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10 hours ago, DonAthos said:

These are the points where I feel conflicted, and forgive me, please, as I stumble through in trying to express myself -- I wish I had the background and the knowledge to be able to advance a clear argument.

On the one hand, it seems ridiculous what you propose, that some combination of chords or notes would read so clearly as "contentment" that music could communicate in the manner of narrative. On the other hand, it seems to me that music does have the power to communicate some kind of meaning. I'm no musician, but musicians study -- don't they? -- to try to discover or refine the effects of their music, whether that's produced by changes in tempo or chord or timbre or etc. Is there nothing for them to discover?

Sure, some music can communicate some emotions to some people (and by "communicate," I mean convey the composer's intended meaning), especially when accompanied by "outside considerations," such as the images and storyline of a film which it is a part of.

Most music, without accompanying "outside considerations" does not. It's very common fo I ndividuals to experience differing emotions and meanings in the same piece of music.

The same is true of colors and non-representational shapes. Whether they're the components of architecture or absract paitings, some works can communicate to some people.

An "outside consideration" which I don't think most people consider is conditioned response. After decades, or even centuries, certain arrangements of musical components become known as representing certain meanings due to their having been tied to those meanings via outside considerations for very long periods of time. Then an original creator comes along, refuses to employ those old cliches, and produces new sounds and expressions that most people call "noise," and only a small percentage of people recognize as exciting and amazingly expressive. Eventually the new style becomes a part of the established "vocabulary," and the traditionalists move on to opposing the next new contribution.

So, yes, musicians study, but they also innovate. They generally explore how new and different arrangements affect them as individuals, rather than how effectively they can precisely communicate meaning as if they were writing a novel or essay using an established vocabulary. In my experience as a musician who has created with countless other musicians, a part of the need to reject the old, established cliches is that they often don't evoke what they're said to evoke. Basically, something like this: "Traditionalist musical society says that musical phrase X evokes 'yearning,' but I've never felt it as evoking yearning when it's not accompanied by images and/or lyrics about yearning, so what musical arrangement that I can come up with expresses, on its own, 'yearning' to me?"

i don't remember ever having jammed with someone who wanted to follow an established vocabulary rather than his or her own ear and heart.

 

Quote

I think it's asking too much to look for meaning in music such that there's no possibility for "rational disagreement or differences in interpretation" about a given piece (has such a standard been achieved for any art?), but I also think that an observation like "a rapid tempo conveys energy" or similar (not that I could defend any such thing; I'm just parroting what I remember overhearing from others) doesn't seem so outlandish.

Certainly. A rapid tempo generally coveys energy. But what does that mean? What does it make people feel? It could be interpreted in many different possible ways: fun, exciting, adventurous, frantic, intimidating, out-of-control, or violent, etc.

Again, the exact same is true of the absract colors and forms of architecture and abstract paintings: bright, saturated colors convey energy where muted neutrals convey the opposite, and the bright colors' energy can be interpreted in as many different ways as a strong tempo can, and the same us true of slow tempos and desaturated colors: they could be taken to be calm, restful, pleasant, comforting, listless, dull, boring, passionless or dying, etc.

 

Quote

Above, Ninth Doctor raised John Williams' score for Schindler's List. Perhaps it accounts in part to my familiarity with the subject matter of the film, but when I listen to that main theme, I find it beautiful and sorrowful -- mournful -- and... I think that's what Williams was reaching for. I think it's not an accident that he found it (being a very talented man). If he had produced something akin to his Superman theme for Schindler's List, instead, I think that everyone in this thread (at least) would recognize that there was something mismatched between the theme and subject matter.

Indeed! But there are also other possible interpretations to atonal music other that horror. Many fans of atonal music say that the expression that they are most fond of hearing in it is freshness. They describe it as a spring breeze blowing through an open window.

 

Quote

Is that meaningful? It seems meaningful to me.

Yes, music can be very meaningful, but it doesn't have to be objective in order to pull that off. Sometimes many people might have similar experiences and find similar meanings. In other cases, most people won't. Music is an abstract art form: it contains elements which are non-representational, but which we nevertheless subjectively find to be similar to things in reality in certain ways, and which we therefore experience as having meaning. Tempo is like a heart beat or a motor or a foot race or a fight. Orange and yellow are like the sun or fire or fruit or urine.  Each person  experiences what each abstract element means to him or her via what in reality they subjectively interpret it to be most similar to. So, of course the odds are that several people will experience the same or similar sums.

J

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23 hours ago, Jonathan13 said:

Sure, some music can communicate some emotions to some people (and by "communicate," I mean convey the composer's intended meaning), especially when accompanied by "outside considerations," such as the images and storyline of a film which it is a part of.

Most music, without accompanying "outside considerations" does not. It's very common fo I ndividuals to experience differing emotions and meanings in the same piece of music.

It makes me imagine a sort of test. Groups of people hearing music (novel to them), some of whom would be given these "outside considerations" (importantly including the title of the work), and others not -- and then asked to provide their evaluations of the music's meaning or character.

That might be interesting.

23 hours ago, Jonathan13 said:

An "outside consideration" which I don't think most people consider is conditioned response. After decades, or even centuries, certain arrangements of musical components become known as representing certain meanings due to their having been tied to those meanings via outside considerations for very long periods of time.

Yes. Actually that did occur to me when I was composing my previous reply... or at least, something like it. It's like... (and I'm thinking of everything now in terms of movie scoring; my apologies, but my knowledge of classical music is paltry anyways) the theremin. It perhaps wouldn't be hard to make something "spooky" sounding out of the theremin. But is that because there is something spooky about the sound of the theremin... or because we have come to associate it with horror films?

23 hours ago, Jonathan13 said:

Indeed! But there are also other possible interpretations to atonal music other that horror. Many fans of atonal music say that the expression that they are most fond of hearing in it is freshness. They describe it as a spring breeze blowing through an open window.

For clarification, the theme I was referring to is this, which I don't think counts as "atonal." (But what do I know about atonal music? Not much! :))

23 hours ago, Jonathan13 said:

Yes, music can be very meaningful, but it doesn't have to be objective in order to pull that off. Sometimes many people might have similar experiences and find similar meanings. In other cases, most people won't. Music is an abstract art form: it contains elements which are non-representational, but which we nevertheless subjectively find to be similar to things in reality in certain ways, and which we therefore experience as having meaning. Tempo is like a heart beat or a motor or a foot race or a fight. Orange and yellow are like the sun or fire or fruit or urine.  Each person  experiences what each abstract element means to him or her via what in reality they subjectively interpret it to be most similar to. So, of course the odds are that several people will experience the same or similar sums.

I think we're agreed.

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11 hours ago, DonAthos said:

It makes me imagine a sort of test. Groups of people hearing music (novel to them), some of whom would be given these "outside considerations" (importantly including the title of the work), and others not -- and then asked to provide their evaluations of the music's meaning or character.

I looked up some similar things in a few minutes of searching. Not exactly what you mean, but very similar. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3138530/

http://www.jinhalee.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/535-ismir-2012-libre.pdf

For the most part, I think the fairest thing to do is to think of music experience as something like emotion.

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Below is a link to a musical piece that is not programmatic -- meaning that it is not "telling a story" or representational of some event or emotion.  It is play for the sake of play.  It's built around the Fugal form.

Notice how the right hand starts the piece by playing a simple theme.  And after it is complete, it is copied in a lower register by the left hand, while the right hand takes the theme in a new direction.

The left and right hands are playing "lines".  At first there are two lines, but as the complexity increases, Bach can have 3 or 4 going simultaneously.  All in perfect vertical harmony.

The enjoyment of the piece stems from your mind's active engagement with the piece.  You are jumping from line to line, making connections between lines due to their harmony.  You never listen to the piece the same way twice.

https://youtu.be/SNWOhm5iXxs?t=354

Music has a strong visual component.

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I reread the essay Art and Cognition by Rand. There is one interesting quote I found:
"...the secret of music is physiological, the answer would require the joint efforts of a physiologist, psychologist, and a philosopher."

More or less, she does leave objective answers about reactions to music to special sciences. That is, we require special science knowledge in order to develop an evaluation of music in terms of what it says about your sense of life. So, when Jonathan asks for research or testing, he is at least in this case requesting the same type of evidence that Rand asked for.

The quote is in RM, page 46.

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

I reread the essay Art and Cognition by Rand. There is one interesting quote I found:
"...the secret of music is physiological, the answer would require the joint efforts of a physiologist, psychologist, and a philosopher."

When thinking about Rand's position on music, it's important to remember that the dominate school of psychology in her day (and which she opposed) was Behaviorism.  And according to Behaviorism, Man's mind is malleable.  Meaning that it has no "identity".  That it is conditioned by it's environment.  Thus atonal music is no more or less valid than tonality.  And, of course, she rejected this.

She was not concerned if Jazz is "good" and Classical music is "bad".  Or if Schubert's 7th Symphony is "pro life" and his 9th isn't.

She was countering the idea that the mind does not possess a specific identity - irregardless of whether or not we have a firm understanding of the cognitive nature of music.  She rejected the notion that music is "non-objective" due to the supposed cultural conditioning.

Much of 20th Century Art was very much driven by this notion that "good" and "bad" art is entirely subjective/cultural and not tied to the nature of Man's perceptual mechanisms.

 

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5 hours ago, Eiuol said:

I reread the essay Art and Cognition by Rand. There is one interesting quote I found:
"...the secret of music is physiological, the answer would require the joint efforts of a physiologist, psychologist, and a philosopher."

More or less, she does leave objective answers about reactions to music to special sciences. That is, we require special science knowledge in order to develop an evaluation of music in terms of what it says about your sense of life. So, when Jonathan asks for research or testing, he is at least in this case requesting the same type of evidence that Rand asked for.

The quote is in RM, page 46.

I am not rejoinding the contention here yet, but...

First, Jonathan denied that there is even a qualitative difference between a special science vs a philosophical method of proof.

If you are referring to the question Jonathan asked me to "prove" with "research" and "testing", it was not the special science question you mention above.

"Where is the research to back up the claim that a sense of life, or any other emotional state, can be reliably integrated with a fully conscious and explicit philosophy?" 

Notice, this question has nothing to do with the physiological reactions to music, which I already stated that Ms. Rand herself is admitting is "not a philosophical" topic. I think she was probably right in her thoughts on physiological components of musical perception and I embrace the qualitative difference she affirms implicitly in that statement by suggesting both philosophy and physiology are relevant to the question. 

There is a lot of context dropping going on, which I will point out when I address the many remarks of who is claiming what can be "integrated".

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12 hours ago, Plasmatic said:

If you are referring to the question Jonathan asked me to "prove" with "research" and "testing", it was not the special science question you mention above.

"Where is the research to back up the claim that a sense of life, or any other emotional state, can be reliably integrated with a fully conscious and explicit philosophy?"

Well, I think we can split the question into two separate questions:

What evidence do you have to say an emotional state can be integrated with an explicit philosophy?

What about music gives content to your emotional state?

The first question isn't precisely a special science question, so "research" as in "doing science" is not relevant (I agree with you here). Yet what you're integrating, well, that part does need psychology. It would not be possible to integrate your -music- tastes in general to your explicit philosophy in a reliable way without a conceptual vocabulary, which for music would require psychology research. The only thing you could say without psychology is that whatever emotions you do feel, you can integrate your appraisal of those emotions so that you feel in a harmonious frame of mind.

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