ABSTRACT
Idealism arose out of Immanuel Kant’s responses to both rationalism and empiricism. Other philosophers, such as Georg Hegel, Friedrich Schiller, and Arthur Schopenhauer, were highly influenced by his writings and further developed this viewpoint. The result is a set of ideas that are dissimilar in their individuality and yet unified by their adherence to a core principle. Although they arrive at this core idea by different routes, the main point of agreement is that while music is comprised of sounds that must be perceived, these sounds actually become music in the mind. Stated more succinctly, music is a product of the mind. In this chapter, we will review rationalism and empiricism, and then move to a review of the contributions of the idealists, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. We finish with some musical examples.
