Philosophy of music is the study of fundamental questions regarding music. The philosophical study of music has many connections with philosophical questions in metaphysics and aesthetics. Some basic questions in the philosophy of music are:
- What is the definition of music? (what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for classifying something as music?)
- What is the relationship between music and mind?
- What does musical history reveal to us about the world?
- What is the connection between music and emotions?
- What is meaning in relation to music?
Famous quotes containing the words philosophy of, philosophy and/or music:
“Frankly, I do not like the idea of conversations to define the term “unconditional surrender.” ... The German people can have dinned into their ears what I said in my Christmas Eve speech—in effect, that we have no thought of destroying the German people and that we want them to live through the generations like other European peoples on condition, of course, that they get rid of their present philosophy of conquest.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“The sun of her [Great Britain] glory is fast descending to the horizon. Her philosophy has crossed the Channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing to that awful dissolution, whose issue is not given human foresight to scan.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“O I shall hear skull skull,
Hear your lame music,
Believe music rejects undertaking,
Limps back.”
—Owen Dodson (b. 1914)