PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCHPHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH

in Music Education and Music Therapyin Music Education and Music Therapy

I. Doing Philosophy

II. Philosophy in the Context of MEMT

Two Propositions

I. ALL research is the doing of philosophy Research seeks to find out “Why”?

All research methodologies have their origins in philosophy.

II. Philosophic inquiry is a mode of research in its own right.

are vehicles we think with.

Like mental lenses they contribute to how we perceive

phenomena and thus to what we may see.

Researchers owe much to ideas and the lenses they provide.

…a process of systematic inquiry by which data are gathered, analyzed, and interpreted in ways that contribute to the development of knowledge.

….an unusually stubborn, persistent effort to think straight by intelligently gathering and analyzing data

…often reflects a dialectic between:

provisional ideas (hypotheses)

exegetic ideas (theories)

…may also be mediated by

schemata

learned, highly organized, networked conceptual patterns

that actively create expectations as they encounter new data

Explanatory Constructs:

larger configurations of cognition, such as schemata and theories

theories are more passive mental data intentionally manipulated by thought

schemata are more actively a part of a researcher’s own cognitive processing procedures, evaluating incoming data, both sensory and mental, for “quality of fit”

Neurobiologist Arthur Damasio (2003) uses a story by G.K. Chesterton to illustrate this point:

A much foretold murder was committed inside a house while four people stood guard and closely watched who was coming and going from the house. That this fully expected murder came to pass was not a puzzle. The puzzle was that the victim was alone and the four observers were adamant: No one had gone in or out of the house. But this was quite false: The postman had gone into the house, done the deed, and left the house in plain view. He had even left unhurried footprints in the snow. Of course, everyone had looked at the postman, and yet all claimed not to have seen him. He simply did not fit the theory they had formulated for the identity of the possible murderer. They were looking but not seeing (pp. 190-191).

We are tempted to assume that we see the world directly and immediately.

But our insight is always mediated by ideas, concepts and explanatory constructs... many of which we take for

granted and rarely question.

What’s this picture about?

Most of us would likely respond something like “life on a farm” or “barnyard.” We see the picture and our previously accepted ideas about barns and farms are automatically activated.

By relying solely on those stored frameworks, however, we may jump to a conclusion or cognitive commitment that precludes us from entertaining other thoughts or ideas….

…such as “Why is this electric mixer in the barnyard?”

Researchers owe much to ideas….

But it’s sometimes difficult to think about ideas themselves…..

...that is, to think about how we think.

Philosophy is thinking about how we think.

Doing Philosophy

pursuit of wisdom

loving wisdom

thinking about thinking

Philosophizing today occurs at the intersection of

And:

Doing Philosophy

Philosophy is different from:

opinionpoint of viewpreferenceideologybelief

advocacy

Doing Philosophy

“The opinion of a thousand jackasses is just that: the opinion of a thousand jackasses.”

The motivation of philosophy derives from an uneasiness with the status quo.

Doing Philosophy

A basic pre-requisite for doing philosophy:

An open mind uncluttered in so far as possible by pre-conceived or pre-determined parameters

Doing Philosophy

Basic tools of philosophical research:

critical reason/logic

language

Doing Philosophy

Three basic procedures in philosophic research:

Criticism...evaluate basic alternative modes of life and thought and formulate choices

Speculation…construct ideal futures or projections of desirable experiences

Analysis…clarification of thoughts, concepts, and the meaning of language

Doing Philosophy

Basic way of doing philosophy:

argument

“An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition.” --Monty Python

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y05EmK66Gsk&mode=related&search=

Doing Philosophy

Arguments and Non-Arguments

Every scene of this movie was filled with excitement for me. I particularly liked the action scenes on the river.

expression of support/enthusiasm, not an argument

I spent five hundred dollars to take this course and the professor appeared in blue jeans and tee shirt, which I consider bad taste. He may have known what he was talking about, but I couldn’t get past the clothes.

a complaint/grip, not an argument

The sincerest satisfaction in life comes in doing one’s duty and in being a dependable person.

a statement of point of view, not an argument

Doing Philosophy

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprise, either of virtue or mischief.” -Francis Bacon

“Women have great strengths, but they are strengths to help the man. A woman’s primary purpose in life and marriage is to help her husband succeed.” -James Robinson

Elaborated, but unsupported statements of opinion, not arguments.

Doing Philosophy

Basic ingredients of an argument:

Proposition (statement or assertion that is either true or false)

A proposition can be either: a premise, or a conclusion.

A first step toward understanding arguments is learning to identify premises and conclusions.

Unfortunately, they are not always explicit.

Doing Philosophy In a basic deductive argument if a

premise is false, so is everything else

“Garbage in….

…Garbage out.”

GIGO

Doing Philosophy

Validity and Soundness of Arguments

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Socrates is mortal.

premises are true, inference is valid; this argument is both valid and sound

All cats are animals. All pigs are animals. All pigs are cats.

premises are true, but improper inference; not a sound argument

All movie stars live in Hollywood. Robert Redford is a movie star. Therefore Robert Redford lives in Hollywood.

false premise, but valid reasoning

a valid argument, but not a sound argument

An argument is validvalid if its conclusions follow necessarily from its premises.

A soundsound argument has true premises and true conclusions.

Primary ways to examine/take issue with deductive arguments:

1. Is there indeed an argument?

2. Does conclusion necessarily follow from premises? Is this the only logical conclusion possible from these premises?

3. Are the premises indeed true?

Inductive Arguments

1. Reason from the particular to the general

2. Evaluated in terms of “inductive force” or probability rather than soundness per se.

3. p <.05

4. Much quantitative research grounded in probability, that is: inductive argument.

Doing Philosophy

Philosophy pervades all research.

The purpose of this study is…...

To that end, the following research questions were designed for this study:

Sometimes said that only numbers (quantitative research) delivers objectivity….

Yet, such numbers relate to a premise. Statistics test premises, they do not generate them.

Doing Philosophy

Engagement with both relies essentially upon argument.

Philosophy is both a body of knowledge (history of ideas) and an ongoing, systematic method of inquiry

By means of analyses based on arguments, philosophers can do experiments: thought experiments, where variables are manipulated in imagination rather than in laboratories or in field work.

Doing Philosophy

Scientific method was born from philosophy

Positivism

Post-positivism critiques:

feminists

deconstructionists

…a process of systematic inquiry by which data are gathered, analyzed, and interpreted in ways that contribute to the development of knowledge.

the data for philosophical research are ideas, concepts, and explanatory constructs…philosophers inspect the architecture of such cognitive units, asking “How do we know what we know?” and “Why?”

philosophers are all about construct validity.

Philosophy and MEMT

“challenge... the validity of extant ideas and practices. They systematically ask whether these ideas and practices are well grounded. They bypass the peripheral and trivial issues, going to the core of why things are as they seem to be and where they seem to be going. As such, they address central questions relating to music education and challenge its very reason for being…by clarifying terms, exposing and evaluating assumptions, and developing systematic bodies of thought that connect with other ideas in respect to a wide range of issues touching on music education. “ --Estelle Jorgensen

In MEMT, philosophers may

Philosophy and MEMT

Please take out your music.

Philosophy and MEMT

--James R. Oestreich, The New York Times, Sunday, January 22, 2001, p 30 Arts & Leisure (on why the 1980 edition of Grove’s decided not to have an entry on music).

Music

“For music, despite the saw about its being an international language, is many things to many people, places, and times.”

Philosophy and MEMT We “could find no one person who could have

written on ‘music’ and the changing significance of the term through the ages.”

--Stanley Sadie, Editor of The New Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Music

Philosophy and MEMT

Education

• “…the deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to transmit or evoke knowledge, attitudes, values, skills and sensibilities”

--Lawrence A. Cremin

Philosophy and MEMT

Education

• Involves configurations of education, e.g. family, church, school, community

• Can involve shifting configurations figurations over time, and the impact of one pedagogy upon another

• The philosophy of education is not simply a philosophy of institutional schooling

Philosophy and MEMT

Education

• Relation to: Training, Enculturation, Socialization, Schooling, Therapy

Philosophy and MEMT

Music Education

GENUSSpecies

Music Therapy

Education through music

Education in music

Music Education

Therapy through musicMusic as therapyMusic Therapy

Philosophy and MEMT Should music education be part of the School

of Education or the School of Fine Arts?

History of Ideas:

Music Education

Music as science (quadrivium)

Music as art (trivium)

Music as fine art (aesthetics)

Philosophy and MEMT

All research in MEMT is grounded in philosophy, be it explicit or implicit

Approaches to choral pedagogy based on characteristics of the individual Approaches to choral pedagogy based on characteristics of the individual voice tend simply to transfer those particular characteristics to the group voice tend simply to transfer those particular characteristics to the group as a whole. A conductor works with an ensemble much like a voice as a whole. A conductor works with an ensemble much like a voice teacher works with a single student in a studio.teacher works with a single student in a studio.

An Example: Explicit Group Teaching and Associated Choral Sound Assumptions

The fundamental assumption here is that the whole (in this case the Choir and its sound) is simply the sum of its constituent parts (i.e., the individual human voices that comprise the Choir).

Canons of logic call this kind of faulty reasoning the . . .

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ChoirChoir==Yet, empirical research demonstrates that solo singing and choral singing are Yet, empirical research demonstrates that solo singing and choral singing are two distinct modes of phonation, i.e., people phonate differently in choirs than two distinct modes of phonation, i.e., people phonate differently in choirs than they do as soloists; and that acoustic properties of choral sound are different they do as soloists; and that acoustic properties of choral sound are different than those of individual sound.than those of individual sound.

Fallacy of Composition• Trying to apply what is true of an Trying to apply what is true of an

individual to the group as a whole…individual to the group as a whole…• Assuming that characteristics of the Assuming that characteristics of the

parts transfer to the characteristics parts transfer to the characteristics of the whole made up of those of the whole made up of those parts…parts…

• The whole is simply the sum of its The whole is simply the sum of its parts. parts. Example: “Each part of this machine is light; therefore, this Example: “Each part of this machine is light; therefore, this must be a very light machine.”must be a very light machine.”

Suggestions for Reading:

Introduction to Philosophy

Suggestions for Reading:

Introduction to Philosophy of Music

Suggestions for Reading:

Introduction to Philosophy of Music Education

Philosophy and MEMT