Musicology: Historical Reflections, Philosophical Perspectives

The question, around which this book is formed, is “What is music?” Historically, different answers were given igniting discussions in absentia. Both the discussions and answers contain significant philosophical perspectives. Some of them have developed over time, others were abandoned for the sake of new ones and still others have faded into natural oblivion. This first volume of the planned two volumes attempts to trace them by:
 
    *Looking back to Antiquity, the medieval period and Modern Times (until the seventeenth century) to find new lines of thought aimed at the future;
    *Including authors, who were the first to hit upon and come up with ingenious ideas of music, adducing excerpts from their fundamental works;
    *Reconstructing methodologically the general picture of musicology through introducing such oppositions as looking into-listening to music, medieval humanisation-Renaissance humanism, etc.
    *Looking into as many aspects as possible of the complex and mixed music-philosophy relationship that has long forgotten the reason as to why Plato, one of its inventors, said that philosophy is the highest music.