6 Introduction
still requires a sustained, sensitive, and cautious comparison with our usage and its own
presuppositions.
Restoring the name “ philosophy ” to physical science through the nineteenth century
already establishes an important link to the ancient sources, whose fuller content we will
explore. We will need to do much work to establish the full meaning of “ music ” ; far beyond
the current sense of music as particular specimens of fine arts in the sonic realm, the
ancient concept of mousik ē was far more inclusive of mathematical and philosophical
studies. Though, in what follows, I perhaps should have used throughout this Greek term
to emphasize its larger meaning, I decided to use our word “ music, ” which was understood
in that more inclusive way by many of the historical actors in this book. I beg the reader
to bear in mind that older, larger meaning throughout. Then too, musical theory and prac-
tice (whether ancient or modern) lies within a broader realm that includes all kinds of
sound; accordingly, we will often pass from music into that larger sonic world. The study
of “ aural culture ” complements the “ material culture ” of science, its machines and devices,
and “ visual culture, ” its charts, diagrams, and illustrations.^8 Yet sound has generally been
neglected, compared to sight and material objects.
In contrast, H. Floris Cohen ’ s classic work showed the close connection between
musical and scientific investigations during the first century of the new philosophy, as did
pioneering work by Claude Palisca on musical humanism, by D. P. Walker on Kepler and
Galileo, by Penelope Gouk on Bacon and Newton, and by Jamie Kassler on Hooke; Ben-
jamin Wardhaugh extended these investigations into the succeeding century, including
many neglected musical and scientific thinkers.^9 The whole field is enjoying a period of
notable ferment, thanks to the exciting work of Alexandra Hui, Myles Jackson, Axel
Volmar and others concerning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Emily Thompson
and Jonathan Sterne examined the rich interactions between culture and technology in the
twentieth century, in the interfaces between architecture, recording, and the sonic arts.^10
Hillel Schwartz ’ s exuberant history of noise connected many facets of cultural and acoustic
history.^11 Brigitte Van Wymeersch, Paolo Gozza, and Jairo Moreno reconsidered the wider
implications of Descartes ’ s writings on music; Veit Erlmann explored the deep connection
between reason and resonance, in all its senses. Friedrich Kittler offered provocative links
between ancient and modern, media and philosophy, music and mathematics.^12 I hope this
volume will add some new avenues and approaches to this growing array of insights.
Attempts to make such broad-reaching connections should be circumspect. Consider,
for instance, Erwin Panofsky ’ s provocative argument that Galileo Galilei ’ s artistic judg-
ments, particularly his antipathy to mannerist art and its predilection for oval shapes,
influenced his rejection of the elliptical planetary orbits Kepler proposed.^13 Yet surely
Galileo ’ s artistic views were one factor among many, not simple determinants of his sci-
entific views.^14 Music was important to Galileo personally, not least through the influence
of his musician-father Vincenzo, who may (as Stillman Drake suggested) have set him on
his path to study nature by joining experiment with mathematics.^15 But lacking further