ABSTRACT

This book stresses the interrelatedness of knowledge by extricating models that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. For example, science can find models from the technology and semantic field of music, music can find its models from the technology and semantic field of science, and each domain may be guided by a philosophical or metaphysical principle - thus, the title of the book. But the book itself is structured as a mirror image of its title. Chapters 1-6 provide instances of the role of music in such domains as epistemology and logic, as well as in the early modern sciences of developmental biology, continuum mechanics, anatomy and physiological psychology, whereas Chapters 7-10 provide instances of what some other domains of knowledge have given back to the philosophy and theory of music.

chapter 1|20 pages

Apollo or Dionysus?

Music and the Growth of Knowledge

chapter 2|28 pages

A Conjunction of Concepts

Music and the Emergence of Probability

chapter 3|12 pages

Making Inferences

Music and the Mechanisation of Logic

chapter 4|22 pages

The Ovum as Initial Datum

Harvey, Starting Points and Creativity

chapter 5|42 pages

On the Stretch

Hobbes, Mechanics and the Shaking Palsy

chapter 6|40 pages

Blowing the Organ

Willis, Hydro-Pneumatics and Hierarchy

chapter 7|36 pages

The Science of Music to 1830

chapter 8|22 pages

Music as Matter in Motion

chapter 9|42 pages

Music as Unfolding Life

chapter 10|30 pages

The Problem of ‘Musical Ear’