Music and The Sublime / Religious Ecstasy in European philosophy?

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Reading about the notion of the sublime as written of by Kant and Schopenhauer etc. it seems to me that the experiences associated with it (deindividuation / oneness and the like) have a lot in common with experiences you can get from art and particularly (for me, at least) music, but I've struggled to find anyone who writes about the sublime outwith the context of the fear of nature at its wildest or staring death in the eye or whatever. The idea of religious ecstasy and similar ideas of altered states of consciousness seem to fit what I'm looking for, but all of the theories about those I've seen seem to be outwith the western philosophical tradition, and I am, for no logical reason, wanting a viewpoint on it from within that tradition. From what I know of Deleuze it seems that he should have SOMETHING related, but what, and where? Adorno too, maybe, although his view would be more negative than what I want to hear?

Soooo...anyone? If someone has some way of turning this into a discussion of sorts rather than an answer my question and go away borefest, that'd be nice too.

― Merdeyeux Merdeyeux Merdeyeux (Merdeyeux Merdeyeux Merdeyeux), Tuesday, 14 November 2006 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.sonicswap.com/media_images/music/large/47/416347.jpg

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 14 November 2006 18:20 (nineteen years ago)

it was inevitable.

― Merdeyeux Merdeyeux Merdeyeux (Merdeyeux Merdeyeux Merdeyeux), Tuesday, 14 November 2006 18:25 (nineteen years ago)

My guess would be to look for writings (whatever exists, like letters) by musicians who wrote religiously-themed works. Bach immediately comes to mind, though he seems too sober to allow religious ecstasy to figure in his oeuvre. Though I don't fucking know, really.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 14 November 2006 18:57 (nineteen years ago)

I feel like the sublime is always referenced in terms of aesthetics; anyhow, a few more names worth looking up re the sublime would be Burke, Longinus (the O.G.), and Lyotard (the pomo new-schooler)

Of course you take even someone like Lyotard, and it's still paintings, not music, that are offered as examples

― Roque Strew (RoqueStrew), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 02:35 (nineteen years ago)

Funny, I was gonna post on something similar, soliciting advice on how to figure out exactly what happens to you physiologically when you get the chills (like in a good way, not a spooky way) from listening to a song. It happened to me the other day while I was listening to that Lil' Wayne song "Shooter" really loud on headphones -- kind of an ecstatic feeling, warm in the neck and shoulders. To be honest it almost feels like an erotic charge, so I was wondering if it's the same chemicals in your brain being released or whatever (I'm no scientist).

I am pretty sure it was the bass did it. Well there's a lot of unique things about that song -- the way the rhythm seems to slow down magically, the vocal stuttering, etc, but anyway the song itself is not really the point -- it's happened to me with plenty of songs.

Anyway, is it a matter of rhythmic complexity (I've often thought of percussion as candy for the brain)? Is is a tension and release thing -- i.e. timing? Such an interesting thing to think about.

― ersatz (ersatz), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 03:36 (nineteen years ago)

From what I've just read on Lyotard I think I'll be making a trip to the library for his "The Inhuman" ASAP.

ersatz, Leonard Meyer looks at music in general and the theory behind the evocation of emotion in a way that's somewhere between psychological and philosophical that may interest you: http://www.music-cog.ohio-state.edu/Music829D/Notes/Meyer1.html . It's not exactly what I'm looking for (and I disagree with some of what he has to say), but it's an interesting read nevertheless.

― Merdeyeux Merdeyeux Merdeyeux (Merdeyeux Merdeyeux Merdeyeux), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 04:11 (nineteen years ago)

I think Bataille's theories of ecstasy and transgression would be right up your alley...

― Elmyr de Hory (Elmyr), Saturday, 18 November 2006 07:58 (nineteen years ago)

In Aesthetic Theory Adorno says something to the effect that Kant and Hegel were the last people able to write about aesthetics while knowing nothing about art; in the case of Kant at least, i think this is justified. The Critique of Judgement is a very rewarding book, but it really tells you nothing about art. Adorno does try to relocate the sublime back in Art as something like the image of a redeemed world, free of reification and domination; its a complex dialectical argument, but effectively, the four moments of kantian aesthetic judgment are relocated in the object rather than the subject, an object which in turn preserves an image of a free subjectivity unavailable in a world under the domination of instrumental reason; what the sublime definitely isn't for Adorno, however is an inkling of the supersensible as it is for Kant

― sonofstan (sonofstan), Saturday, 18 November 2006 22:28 (nineteen years ago)

i own "the inhuman" but when i scanned the stuff in it on music i wasn't especially struck by its insight -- and cannot now remember what was said (he said helpfully)

i also vaguely remember that russell sez that hegel wz kinda the portal for "eastern" thinking into the western tradition -- but even if i've remembered that correctly i have no idea whether it's true or not

so 1/10 for me as regards this contribution i think

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 18 November 2006 22:37 (nineteen years ago)

benjamin's famous "art in the age of mechanical reproduction" isn't exactly on topic but it addresses some of yr concerns tangentially ("the aura" &c) plus its totally baller.

― max (maxreax), Sunday, 19 November 2006 01:22 (nineteen years ago)

actually i take that back. maybe try rudolf otto's "the idea of the holy"?

― max (maxreax), Sunday, 19 November 2006 02:32 (nineteen years ago)

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