ABSTRACT
In her chapter, June Boyce-Tillman traces the history of eudaimonia, from Aristotle’s writing of an ethical orientation comprising virtue, wisdom, and flourishing, to its Christianization by Aquinas, who adds the element of transcendence. She argues that self-actualization through music is one of the last remaining places for the soul in Western culture, in which the notion of spirituality has been gradually usurped by aesthetic experience. Boyce-Tillman proposes a phenomenography of music, emphasizing spirituality/liminality and re-engaging with music’s connections to the natural world. Like Orr and van Der Schyff, this author sees music-making as a vital means to challenge the disastrous contemporary sociopolitical paradigm that burdens and threatens to consume our species; through music we can access spirituality and wonder.
