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13 Chapter 1 Musical Understanding: Wittgenstein, Ethics, and Aesthetics It is impossible for me to say in my book one word about all that music has meant in my life. How then can I hope to be understood? (Rhees 1981, 94) 1. Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and Music I was first introduced to the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) as a graduate student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, in the late 1970’s. Reading the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was a formative and life-changing experience; not only because of the challenging nature of the work, which requires sophisticated logical-mathematical reasoning, but more so because of the way the book eradicates any certitude a reader may have about themselves and the world. As a young man, the main lesson of this study was that if one has something to say, that it should be said clearly, otherwise it is better for it to pass over in silence. For someone intending to become a composer, this was and remains a prompting to look deeply into oneself and inquire about the real motivation of composing music, to ask what can be said through music, and to investigate how it can be done. There were no obvious answers to these questions, but the seed of curiosity had been planted. Over the years, my interest in Wittgenstein has intensified. I have studied his writings fervently and continue to attempt to connect his ideas with my research on musical meaning. The more insight I have developed, the more fascinated I’ve become by the originality of his thinking and the passionate tone of his writing. The following reflections aim to share this passion by focusing on some issues that represent but one personal interpretation of the countless points of view one might develop by reading him. I am engaged in a process of continuous self-inquiry guided by Wittgenstein’s voice. This text includes a significant amount of quotations, as I believe it is important to acquaint oneself with his unconventional style and relentless search for logical clarity. His ideas on music reveal a kind of conservative attitude that seems at odds with his progressive attempt to remove the veils of confusion caused by the limitations of language. How are we to understand this attitude toward music? Can we interpret his musical world beyond the original context to Unsayable Music 14 project them into a contemporary analysis of music? I undertake no attempt to draw easy conclusions, but rather, extend an invitation such as the one I received upon first reading Wittgenstein, to revisit applying his method in order to learn something new. Wittgenstein is an “intellectual myth” of the 20th century and certainly one of the most original thinkers that Western culture has ever produced.1 His philosophy reflects on issues of logic, mathematics, language, psychology, ethics, aesthetics, and religion. While his method combines the rejection of metaphysics and the scientific spirit with clarity and a simple, colloquial-like language, it is pushed to such a level of logical precision that it stretches the limits of thinking. The unorthodoxy of Wittgenstein emerges as much in his life as in his thought; his writing is almost incomprehensible and his unusual assumptions, views, and inquiries cause surprise, confusion, and discomfort. The growing bibliography on Wittgenstein bears witness to the fascination unleashed by his work and life inside and outside academic circles.2 The archives of his work—an enormous body of manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, notes, drafts, and aphorisms, which only recently became available, turned out to be a treasure chest for scholarship.3 We can expect that the fascination will continue and a profusion of new approaches will appear, seeking to illuminate his legacy through multiple perspectives by way of the connections between his life and philosophy. Wittgenstein characterized his philosophy as a therapeutic activity. He dismissed the idea that philosophy can serve as a theory to explain the world; he had great antipathy to academic life, which he considered an obstacle to promoting philosophy as a serious and productive activity. No honest philosopher, he said, could treat philosophy as a profession. He encouraged his best students to leave academia and pursue careers such as that of a physician, schoolteacher, or gardener. Above all, he abhorred a worldview grounded in science. For him, science and technology have nothing to do with the fundamental problems of the world because “there is no great essential problem in the scientific sense” (CV 10; 20).4 Criticizing the...

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