That is, unlike the visible, which (again, naively) must always present-to-sight, sound can be heard around corners, through speakers, ‘out of sight’, without, importantly, compromising it’s so-called 'authenticity’. — StreetlightX
This is interesting, but I find something off about analyzing the metaphysics of hearing as an act of perception based on the properties of sound waves (the medium that provides information for perception) rather than the objects of perception (if there are such objects to be said, I'll have to think about this) when you do not for vision with respect to electro-magnetic waves. How do you justify this difference? — Saphsin
This strikes me as a problematic evaluation. Obviously we might say that the visible must be present-to-sight, but so too might we say that the audible must be present-to-hearing. I can also turn this around and say that the visible can be out of earshot without compromising its authenticity.
And with respect to hearing something through speakers; how is that different to seeing something through a television? This likely ties in with Saphsin's query. — Michael
Three things immediately come to mind, one of which you've already alluded to with "figure/background". Sound may be "around a corner", but sound is also "everywhere". We can locate a sound's location in space, but space itself is already a visual notion. When we hear something it melds entirely . That isn't to say you can't have a melody and a harmony, or the ability to pick out particular instruments in a symphony (though these would be more akin to looking at a painting than just the experience of sound), but I think that particularity would be less central to metaphysics -- so generalizing from some particular visual cue to a universal wouldn't be quite as an important of a question -- "cutting across appearance/reality" as you note. — Moliere
So perhaps an effective metaphysics of perception differs based on what aspect you are focusing on, such as a focus on how the medium affects the experience of perception (brightness and shades of flashing colors/loudness) in contrast to how it reveals the attributes of objects (appearance of objects/hardness of objects) So I'm suspicious of using what you described as a justification for using properties of sound waves as the basis for metaphysics of hearing, unless we are to do the same for vision in respect to its medium. I'm not really sure how much the ontology of waves actually reveals about the nature of its coinciding experiences. — Saphsin
To think of sound without either wavelength or amplitude would be to do away with sound altogether. Naively of course, vision excludes this ‘in-built’ dimension of difference: to see is to see self-identical ’things’ (this is not quite right, but let’s run with it for now…) — StreetlightX
We don't hear a 'thing out there' (as with sight); so much as we are implicated in the sound itself; we - or our ear drums and cochlea - vibrate along with the sound, such that we - as bodies - are enfolded into the very phenomenon of sound without which we would not be able to 'hear' it. — StreetlightX
Sound then, is resolutely anti-Platonic, to the degree that it militates against any notion of timelessness, eternity, or ’the unchanging’.
Sound then, is resolutely anti-Platonic, to the degree that it militates against any notion of timelessness, eternity, or ’the unchanging’ — StreetlightX
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.