"Thoughts About Music" from Only the Lover Sings, by Josef Pieper

"Thoughts about Music""…music prompts the philosopher's continued interest because it is by nature so close to the fundamentals of human existence" (Pieper 39). In the section, "Thoughts about Music," from Josef Pieper's Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation, discusses music and the intriguing question, "What do we perceive when we listen to music?" (40).

Pieper answers this question by quoting Schopenhauer, who claimed music, "does not speak of things but tells of weal and woe" (42). This makes sense because it relates to "man's good," and our yearning for perfect happiness. When listening to music certain emotions surface, as Plato stated, "Music imitates the impulses of the soul" (Pieper 45). Thus, to truly understand what we perceive when we listen to music, one must understand what is being expressed, and not simply "listen." For many, music can be an "out of body experience," something that truly reveal's man and his meaning in life.

Much of Arthur Schopenhauer's writing is focused o...

From left to right: Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquin...

Arthur Schopenhauer

Some may argue that music is simply "…a means of personal enchantment, of escapism…" (Pieper 50). How one views and interprets music truly reveals one's character, because, "music lays bare man's inner existential condition," (Pieper 50).

In addition, Pieper continues to answer the question of what we perceive when we listen to music, by quoting other philosophers and the ideas of Western philosophical traditions. "To repeat: thus has the nature of music variously been understood in the Western philosophical tradition- as nonverbal articulation of weal and woe; as wordless expression of man's intrinsic dynamism of self-realization, a process understood as man's journey toward ethical personhood, as the manifestation of man's will in all aspects, as love. This, for instance, is the meaning of Plato's statement that 'music imitates the impulses of the soul', or as Aristotle puts it: music is similar to...