Of Mind and Music - by Laird Addis (Paperback)

About the Book

In this fascinating account of the way in which we understand music, Laird Addis builds on the idea, first articulated by Susanne Langer, that passages of music symbolize emotions and other conscious states.

Book Synopsis

In this fascinating account of the way in which we understand music, Laird Addis builds on the idea, first articulated by Susanne Langer, that passages of music symbolize emotions and other conscious states. He maintains that the unique bond joining music and feelings is based on a previously unnoticed affinity between consciousness and sound. Addis combines a scholar's insight with a musician's sensibility to make an engaging and convincing statement that will help readers comprehend music's importance in human affairs.

Review Quotes

Of Mind and Music has real value for musicians. The challenges to familiar clichés make it important reading for anyone concerned with these issues.... It stresses the uniqueness of the emotional experience of great music; that it has represented unique forms of consciousness and will still do so. Indeed, it takes us out of familiar habits of mind in respect of the emotional associations of traditional music to suggest both how music could have been experienced in ancient societies and how it might be experienced in the future. A stimulating approach, and an often quietly humorous one too: that the prospect of writing 'sad' music might make a composer happy--if there were a commission in prospect.

A trenchant, ambitious book which offers a striking new account of the relationship between music and mental states. Well-written and concise, light-hearted and engagingly immodest, Addis's book represents a genuinely original contribution to one of the most widely discussed issues in the philosophy of music.

Addis writes as one who is himself engaged in the composition and performance of music (as an orchestral double bassist), and his telling points are those concerning the arguable status of any causal relationship between music and emotion.

Addis's proposal is an intriguing and refreshingly novel one. It is not for nothing that Peter Kivy has described it as 'the first philosophy book in several decades with something truly original to say about music and emotion.'

The union of the mind and music is the focus, and Addis explains why it is necessary to understand both in order to answer the old question: What makes people feel such a deep range of emotions as the result of hearing music?

About the Author

Laird Addis is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. Among his previous books is Natural Signs: A Theory of Intentionality.