MUSIC, PHILOSOPHY, AND MODERNITY

398 music, philosophy, and modernity

Kramer maintains that ‘It is scarcely a secret that the extraordinary

value ascribed to music, and to the arts in general, during the nine-

teenth century has lost much of its credibility’ (Kramer 1990 : 20 ). If

music’s value is to depend on a metaphysical position that seeks to give

itself a dignity superior to the sciences, music is vulnerable to the philo-

sophical failure of that position. This will be the case even though there

are still good reasons for regarding music as a philosophical counter to

scientism. Kramer consequently also reminds us that the loss of credi-

bility of metaphysical claims for music is not a reason to conspire with

the cultural and intellectual marginalisation of music and the other arts

characteristic of some areas of contemporary society.

How, then, should one now regard the challenge that music makes

to some of the dominant concerns of contemporary Western philoso-

phy, without it having to be taken as a substantial solution to traditional

problems of metaphysics? Part of the answer to this question is sug-

gested by the title of Kramer’s book,Music as Cultural Practice, which

connects to the ideas explored in the preceding chapters. If philoso-

phy itself is regarded as a cultural practice, decisions about the com-

peting significances of such practices cannot be made by philosophy

alone, so the relationships and tensions between practices become cru-

cial. As we have seen, however, the needs that metaphysics sought to

fulfil cannot just be conjured away when philosophy shows itself inca-

pable of fulfilling them. The image of music presented in theBirth

of Tragedymust indeed now be regarded as hyperbolic. However, in

a world where emphatic philosophical claims are equally problematic

and the public role of the explicit practice of professional philosophy

is anyway often marginal, music’s making its own kind of sense of the

world for many people should play a part in questions about philoso-

phy’s ability to do this.^20 Resources for post-metaphysical meaning, as

Nietzsche often points out, will be sought in whatever cultural prac-

tices can elicit commitment. The significances that music generates are

important because some kinds of commitment may involve the risk

of regression and irrationality, as the resurgence of theological funda-

mentalisms demonstrates. Many people find music a more compelling

practice than philosophy for situating themselves in the world: as such,

music can be seen as one of the resources available for confronting the

20 The content of what people do in confronting ethical and other dilemmas is ‘philo-
sophical’, but the question is the extent to which they need philosophy as a specialised
discipline in its present form to deal with such issues.