The Intrinsic Value of Musical Experience. A Rethinking: Why and How?

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education book series (LAAE, volume 15)

Abstract

In this chapter I will discuss the following questions: What characterizes a thinking about music which will make talking about ‘the value of music in itself’ possible and meaningful today? And why is it important to relate to this kind of idea in music education as well as in modern society in general?

Central to my investigations is Martin Heidegger’s thinking in The Origin of the Work of Art concerning the differences between things, utility articles and artworks, and Hannah Arendt’s discussions in The Human Condition concerning our modern oblivion of the differences between the three kinds of human activities; labor, work and action. I will even relate to Max Weber’s discussion of the character of modern Western rationality and how it has been developed, as well as the Aristotelian concepts poiesis and praxis, and the Kantian concepts pragmatic and practical actions.

I argue that music as a product and object in the outer world cannot be said to have a value in itself. Music as an object is a means to musical experience. Musical experience however is not a product, it is action; a human activity which has a value in itself. This value is linked to thinking and reflection, actions which are related to the Aristotelian concept of happiness in the long run (eudaimonia). I think that this line of thinking of musical experience as action is a possibility for a philosophy of music education to transcend instrumentalism and technical rationality. It’s a possibility for those who no longer want to accept the worshiping of instrumental reason and technical rationality as the one and only possible form of rationality, and the denial of human freedom which goes together with it. This type of thinking contributes to a fundamental critique of what seems to be a sort of ‘totalitarian’ economical and commercial ideology in today’s educational and cultural politics.

Keywords

Music education Philosophy Instrumentalism Technical rationality Labor-work-action Artworks 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Norwegian Academy of MusicOsloNorway
  2. 2.Örebro UniversityÖrebroSweden

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