Music as Synergy and Non-Classical Model of Man

The article explores the phenomenon of music from the viewpoint of Man. In the philosophy of music, the connection with man is getting relevant, replacing the positivism, as well as the speculatism, common to music theories in the past, when formal logical methods were used.

The article focuses on the connection between man’s personal experience, his or her anthropological energy, that is the one that comes from the innermost foundations and utmost underlying feelings of the person (horror, pain, happiness, delight, and self-transcendence), and specific musical energy. In this rendering, we rest on the philosophical concept of the outstanding modern Russian thinker Sergey Khoruzhy. He describes man as an energetic entity formed by a limit-experience, which is the experience of reaching the limits of existence and consciousness. The synergistic approach to man continues the non-classical philosophical tradition of building the model of man using the categories like “energy”, “self-practice”, “limit-experience”, “constitution of man” and excluding the categories like “entity”, “substance”, “subject” present in the classical vision of man in European philosophy of the 17th—19th centuries.

The anthropological component of the non-classical synergistic concept of music includes the comprehension of man through a certain typification of man’s striving to reach the limits. This philosophical anthropology depicts man opening up to the ontological, ontical and virtual limits.

Music, as such synergy, stands for a projection of man, thus becoming the music of ontological, ontical and virtual striving. From this point of view, not only a specific concept of music is formed, different from other concepts, such as the concepts of music as a number and as an expression, but also an approach to the entire historical musical legacy and to musical practice, including composer’s, performer’s and listener’s activities.

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