Mita Philosophical Society Lecture

2021/03/24

Lecture Outline:

It can be said that the foundations of "Western modernity" in the history of philosophy and thought were laid by Immanuel Kant and reached their zenith with G. W. F. Hegel of German Idealism. Hegel, who inherited and further developed Kant's rigorous thinking on how "experience" through "consciousness" is possible and what kind of situation it entails, came to perceive our reality as a series of processes in which "spirit" "manifests." Ludwig van Beethoven, born in the same year as Hegel, developed the Western music of the period as "thought in sound," thereby opening up entirely new dimensions for both the forms of thought and the possibilities of musical expression.

With these two figures as the main axes of reference, this series will feature various related philosophers, thinkers, and composers under a different theme each time. A philosopher and a performer will attempt to approach the cultural background—centered on philosophy and thought—surrounding the musical works, as well as the substance of the individual works themselves, from their respective viewpoints. The ultimate goal of this endeavor is to reconsider what kind of era "modernity" was and what we in the present should inherit from it. The ten-part lecture series will cover themes such as "Passion and Reason," "The Power of Sorrow," "The Philosophy of Music," and "The Fluctuation between Life and Death." This fourth session, titled "The Genealogy of the Fantasia," will feature the following four works.

Mozart: Fantasia, K. 475

Schumann: Fantasie, Op. 17

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 28, Op. 101

Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy, D. 760, Op. 15

Lecture Poster_Spirit as Sound.pdf.pdf