Emmarlone Salva Ravago Special Questions in Ancient Philosophy

March 9, 2011 Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, OP

Plato on Music Music is the embodiment of rational order.1 Indeed it takes genius to combine simple tones into a composition having structure, continuity, rhythm, melody and harmony. No wonder why only a handful of men compose quality music Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Stradivari Throughout history, it is undeniable that akin to mans rational development is his musical sophistication from the simple banging of a Java mans jagged rocks to the melodious rubbing of a horses tail on the violins string in Percy Faiths A Summer Place. However, despite mans rational and musical progress, it seems as though that music, apart from being a form of leisure and source of entertainment, has now lost its most important function, its formative function yes, music has a formative function! Instead of enriching and cultivating minds, contemporary music has now become vulgar, degrading and corruptive to a certain point, valueless. Music has turned into something ugly; ironically, it has become a noise a noise that pollutes and rusts reason. The various distortions that modern society has done to music, art in general, is contrary, according to the ancient Greeks, to its proper end and function the good and benefit of man. Music, they believed, was to have a formative and transformative function both in individuals and in society. One of the ancient Greeks who studied the function and appraised the value of music was the Greek philosopher Plato. Though Plato had a bias against certain forms of arts, he did not, however, banish all his contemporary artists, especially musicians he was genuinely interested in music only those artists engaged in mimetic art who, similar to, later on, Aristotles treatment of slaves and merchants,2 he believed, were only playing a kind of game and, as such, are not public benefactors who pull their weight in society.3 Primarily, Plato describes music as mimesis;4 not, however, in the sense that it copies natural or historical phenomena, such as storms, battles and victories; but rather, music imitates, or better yet represents, and expresses emotions, character, good and evil. Music can express emotions of sadness or anger, in virtue of itself being sad or angry. 5 Furthermore, because music can imitate or represent emotions, good and evil, it too can transfer the original emotions, responses and attitudes of the composer to the listener. The habit of feeling pleasure or pain at mere representations is not far removed from the same feeling about realities, and someone experiencing an emotion before an imitation will necessarily feel the same emotion in the presence of the original.6 There is, however, Plato warns us, a danger in this transfer of emotions in fact, even in the pleasure derived from music, either by playing or listening to it. Though music provides pleasure to the senses, Plato is nevertheless confident of
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Page 650 See Aristotles Politics 3 Page 649 (Quote Republic 600a, 602b) 4 Page 644 (Quote the article) 5 Page 644 (Quote the article) 6 Page 644 (Quote the article)