Sonic philosophy or the philosophy of sound is a philosophical theory that proposes thinking sonically instead of thinking about sound. It is applied in

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ...

or the investigation of being and the determination of what exists. The materialist sonic philosophy is also considered part of aesthetic philosophy and traces the effect of sound on philosophy and draws from the notion that sound is a flux, event, and effect.

Background

Scholars cite the role of the naturalistic philosophies of

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his c ...

and

Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work '' The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the pr ...

in the development of sonic philosophy. Both maintained that music and sound directly figure the world as it is in itself and that they serve as the primary forces and movements behind all natural change, tension, creation, and destruction. The latter's notion of music considers it as a direct expression of the will. In his early unpublished writings, Nietzsche wrote that the concept of the philosopher involves his attempts "to let all sounds of the world reverberate in him and to place this comprehensive sound outside himself into concepts". These thinkers' positions underscored the philosophical importance of sound as they articulate the presentation of an

that unsettles the ordinary conception of things. This ontology allows the investigation of being and the determination of what things exist. Modern sound philosophy also emerged out of philosophical aesthetics as scholars address the question of whether sounds and sounding artworks can be treated in the same way as other arts (e.g.

visual arts The visual arts are Art#Forms, genres, media, and styles, art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as ...

) are approached. Sonic philosophy is considered in opposition to the

Kantian Kantianism is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mind, ...

philosophy of

humanism Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

since it challenges the suggestion that the world is only "for-us" and mediated by discourse. A modern conceptualization articulated the philosophy as based on the idea that sound is a flux, event, and effect. It is also part of a contemporary project that rejects the

essentialist Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle si ...

and phenomenological approach to sonic theory.

Sonic event

An element in the materialist philosophy of sound is the so-called sonic or acoustic event. In this conceptualization of sound, the event - beginning from a source and arriving at multiple locations - is always considered a public event, filling both ears and space. As an experience it shows that: 1) space is more than a conceptualization of materiality; 2) knowledge constitutes several voices; 3) circulation is affective and productive.

Flux

For thinkers such as John Cage and

Max Neuhaus Max Neuhaus (August 9, 1939 – February 3, 2009) was an American musician, composer and artist who was a noted interpreter of contemporary and experimental percussion music in the 1960s. He went on to create numerous permanent and short-term soun ...

, sound and music are thought of as anonymous flux that is beyond the human contributions to it. According to

Manuel De Landa Manuel DeLanda (born 1952) is a Mexican- American writer, artist and philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is a lecturer in architecture at the Princeton University School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania School ...

, this particular notion of sound as a flux is critical in the conceptualization of all of nature and culture as a collection of flows that are captured and released through different isomorphic processes.

Philosophies

Christoph Cox proposed a modern conceptualization of sonic philosophy that drew from the works of Nietzsche and Gilles Deleuze. Citing the lack of theories on sound art, he developed a materialist sonic philosophy that approached theorizing aesthetics by beginning with sound. Cox maintained that this method upsets the ontology of "objects" and "beings" and underscores the materiality of sound. He stated:

If we proceed from sound, we will be less inclined to think in terms of representation and signification, and to draw distinctions between culture and nature, human and nonhuman, mind and matter, the symbolic and the real, the textual and the physical, the meaningful and the meaningless. Instead, we might begin to treat artistic productions, not as complexes of signs or representations but complexes of forces materially inflected by other forces and force-complexes.

Thinkers who also developed their own sonic philosophy include

Christof Migone Christof Migone is a Swiss-born experimental sound artist and writer, formerly based in Montreal, now living in Toronto. He is assistant professor at the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Western Ontario Migone's solo recordings i ...

who placed sound art within disparate and paradoxical contexts to address the sound's "physical diffuseness". In his work called ''Sonic Somatic: Performances of the Unsound Body'', he also explored how sound shaped and disrupted the way art shifted from subject to object through to the abject. The work of Jing Wang cited Chinese philosophical concepts associated with sound such as resonance, ''

shan shui ''Shan shui'' (; pronounced ) refers to a style of traditional Chinese painting that involves or depicts scenery or natural landscapes, using a brush and ink rather than more conventional paints. Mountains, rivers and waterfalls are commo ...

'', ''huanghu'', and distributive monumentality as he explored the meaning and function of sound and expanded on the notion that "Chinese acoustics is acoustics of '' qi".'' Sonic philosophy also underpinned a tactic called sonic warfare. It holds that, while sound is merely a vibration audible to humans and animals, it entails the perceptions of a human subject. In battle, sonic philosophy serves as a sonic intervention into thought, deploying concepts that are identified with sound, noise, music culture. These are then inserted into the weak spots of the history, philosophy, and

psyche Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" (ψυχή). Psyche may also refer to: Psychology * Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious * ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unconscious by Car ...

of the enemy.

References

{{Authority control Applied aesthetics Acoustics