Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Nature of Musical Expression' and 'The Therapy of Desire'

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4 ideas

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 8. Transcendental Necessity
Everything happens by reason and necessity [Leucippus]
     Full Idea: Nothing happens at random; everything happens out of reason and by necessity.
     From: Leucippus (fragments/reports [c.435 BCE], B002), quoted by (who?) - where?
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 4. Art as Expression
Romantics say music expresses ideas, or the Will, or intuitions, or feelings [Scruton]
     Full Idea: According to the Romantic theory music was an expression of something, of an idea (Hegel), of the Will (Schopenhauer), of 'intuitions' (Croce), or of feelings (Collingwood).
     From: Roger Scruton (The Nature of Musical Expression [1981], p.54)
     A reaction: Deryck Cooke was the culmination of music as expression of feeling, and Stravinsky was the greatest rebel against the whole idea of expression in music. You can set out to create interesting music which does or does not grab the emotions.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 4. Emotion in Art
Expressing melancholy is a good thing, but arousing it is a bad thing [Scruton]
     Full Idea: To describe a piece of music as expressive of melancholy is to give a reason for listening to it; to describe it as arousing or evoking melancholy is to give a reason for avoiding it.
     From: Roger Scruton (The Nature of Musical Expression [1981], p.49)
     A reaction: Expressing sexual desire, while avoiding arousing it, is the nice challenge for a particular type of art. Would Scruton say that expressing joy is a good thing, but arousing it is bad? It is a nice observation, though.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia
Philosophers after Aristotle endorsed the medical analogy for eudaimonia [Nussbaum, by Flanagan]
     Full Idea: Nussbaum says the post-Aristotelian philosophers did much more than simply advancing and refining Aristotle's ethics. They advanced eudaimonics by explicitly endorsing the medical analogy.
     From: report of Martha Nussbaum (The Therapy of Desire [1994]) by Owen Flanagan - The Really Hard Problem 4 'Eudaimoncs'
     A reaction: Since Aristotle is all about the successful functioning of the psuche, this idea is obviously implicit in his original texts. It needs a positive concept of mental health, and not a mere absence of mental illness. See the Mindapples campaign.