ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which music contributes to the development of a particular type of wisdom, namely phronesis. It explores the role of 'music'/'musicality' in Bakhtin's philosophical aesthetics: the musical attitude of consciousness within the answerable act. The chapter offers a preliminary reading of the issues, albeit from an oblique angle, and is a brief prolegomenon to a fuller investigation of the subject. 'Answerability' and 'the answerable act' highlight the key role of ethics in Bakhtin's thought and the pressing need in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century to draw 'art' and 'life' closer together in order to avoid the aestheticization of life. Emotional-volitional tone, rhythm, and aesthetic love are explored through Bakhtin's early writings in philosophical aesthetics with an ear for the underlying 'attitude of consciousness' that Bakhtin hears resonating in the truly answerable act and what the author shall suggest is its essential musicality.
