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Reimer through Confucian Lenses: Resonances with Classical Chinese Aesthetics
- Philosophy of Music Education Review
- Indiana University Press
- Volume 23, Number 2, Fall 2015
- pp. 183-201
- 10.2979/philmusieducrevi.23.2.183
- Article
- Additional Information
In this paper, I compare all three editions of Bennett Reimer’s A Philosophy of Music Education with early Chinese philosophy, in particular, classical Chinese aesthetics. I structure my analysis around a quartet of interrelated themes: aesthetic education, education of feeling, aesthetic experience, and ethics and aesthetics. This paper suggests that Reimer’s philosophical writings have some degree of transcultural applicability beyond Western thought, counterpointing criticisms that his philosophy is narrow, ethnocentric, and culturally limited. It also serves as a plausible point of departure towards a transcultural theory of aesthetics for music education relevant to the pluralistic and globalized world in which we live.