ABSTRACT
The need to distinguish between ‘an institutionalized discourse’ and a ‘discourse in general’ explains why it is inappropriate to view ‘musicology’ as comprising all statements that are concerned with, or relate to, music. The very idea that musicology should prove its political or ethical legitimacy will no doubt strike many as a rather unusual or unnecessary imposition. Yet, as Ralph Locke observes, ‘musicology and a concern for social relevance and efficacy might at first seem an odd pairing, but only if one works on the operating assumption that musicology and music are more or less irrelevant to society, are indeed not themselves social phenomena’. Those who are involved in the study of music are not only pursuing a hobby or interest. Postmodern theory is often associated with the attempt to theorize knowledge in relation to multiple contingent or constructed subject positions. Central to Jürgen Habermas’s philosophical, theoretical system is the notion of the ‘ideal speech situation’.
