The Topos of Music

Abstract

This book deals with the topos, the very concept of music. However, music appears in a wide range of human realms. It is a universal phenomenon of symbolic and physical, formal and emotional, individual and social, systematic and historic presence. Therefore, developing a con- cept of music should not get off with a definition ex machina, but offer propaedeutic orientation tools in order to make the reader understand why certain conceptual mechanisms or definitions are built. The need for such a support reveals a strong distinction from chemistry, physics or other natural sciences. The point is not that these sciences are dispensed from the fundamental question of what they are about. Rather the characteristic difference to musicology-and other humanities-is that natural sciences offer a fast access to effective activities, to the ''working scientist" paradigm: Realization of one's scientific status by doing science.