History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

HoP 133 - Strings Attached - Music and Philosophy

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Jun 16, 2013
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INSIGHT

Music As Mathematical Philosophy

  • Medieval philosophers treated harmonics (music) as a mathematical preliminary to philosophy, like geometry or astronomy.
  • This reflects a Pythagorean/Aristotelian view that cosmic order is expressed in mathematical proportions.
ANECDOTE

Singing To Camels Origin Tale

  • Peter recounts a humorous old story about singing to camels originating from a man who fell off his camel and sang, soothing the animal.
  • He then introduces the ud and plays a clip by Mohamed Al-Kasadji to illustrate the instrument's sound.
INSIGHT

Music Alters Humours By Proportion

  • Al-Kindi and others argued music affects emotions by altering bodily humours via sympathetic mathematical proportions.
  • They linked instrument string ratios to bodily balances, seeing universal mathematical structure across nature and soul.
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