The Harkening of the Infinite. On the Ontological Sense of Music in Reference to Schelling, Schopenhauer and Levinas´ Aesthetic Theories

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to broach the question of the possible ontological and metaphysical meaning contained implicitly in the aesthetic reflection concerning the phenomenon of musical sonority. Starting from the consideration of the specific way of being of music understood as indeterminate ontological «event» separate from concrete objects, we shall examine the way in which the tension between the limit drawn by the world of defined things and the «un-limiting» power of sound is expressed in the context of aesthetic proposals on the essence of music made by F. W. J. Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer and Emmanuel Levinas. These three meditations, each of them in its own way, coincide in pointing out a singular reference of the musical to the ontologically indefinite, the ab-solute and the boundless, that turn the experience of musical perception into a peculiar variant of harkening of the infinite.