“Only the Lover Sings” by Josef Pieper Essay

Thoughts about Music medicinal drug prompts the philosophers continued interest because it is by nature so close to the fundamentals of human conception (Pieper 39). In the section, Thoughts about Music, from Josef Piepers Only the Lover Sings Art and Contemplation, discusses music and the intriguing question, What do we behold when we listen to music? (40).Pieper answers this question by quoting Schopenhauer, who claimed music, does not speak of things but tells of weal and woe (42). This makes gumption because it relates to mans good, and our yearning for perfect happiness. When listening to music certain emotions surface, as Plato stated, Music imitates the impulses of the mind (Pieper 45). Thus, to truly understand what we perceive when we listen to music, one must understand what is being expressed, and not simply listen. For many, music can be an out of body experience, something that truly reveals man and his core in life. Some may argue that music is simply a means of pe rsonal enchantment, of evasion (Pieper 50). How one views and interprets music truly reveals ones character, because, music lays bare mans inside(a) existential condition, (Pieper 50).In addition, Pieper continues to answer the question of what we perceive when we listen to music, by quoting other philosophers and the ideas of Western philosophic customs. To repeat thus has the nature of music variously been understood in the Western philosophical tradition- as nonverbal articulation of weal and woe as wordless expression of mans intrinsical dynamism of self-realization, a process understood as mans journey toward ethical personhood, as the manifestation of mans will in all aspects, as love.This, for instance, is the meaning of Platos averment that music imitates the impulses of the soul, or as Aristotle puts it music is similar to ethics and related to it. The same tradition continues in remarks by Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche when they say that music invariably is the expression of an immediacy as no fussy medium is involved or (Schopenhauer) that of all the arts it is music that represents the will itself or (Nietzsche in his description of Wagner) that music lets us hear nature transformed into love (Pieper 44-45).The philosophy of music is something that can be interpreted differently by all. Pieper uses sufficient evidence to support the claim that music does in point play an important role in mans true character and how he views his life, and at last his existence.ReferenceOnly the Lover Sings Art and Contemplation by Josef Pieper