[escepticos] RV: The science of musicology

["Xoan M. Carreira" <carreira@...>]

Otro texto de interés para epistemólogos y agregados.

ˇEl último párrafo es impagable!

XMC


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| De: Eric Van Tassel <101233.342 en compuserve.com>
| Asunto: The science of musicology
| Fecha: sábado 27 de septiembre de 1997 9:56
| 
| Re Bill's original [ :) ] citation of the American Heritage Dictionary,
| defining "musicology" as "The historical and scientific study of music":
| 
| I don't think I am the only copyeditor who thinks that dictionaries are
| dangerous instruments.
| 
| I am fairly sure that the inclusion of "scientific" in this definition
has
| little, if anything, to do with the matters that have roiled the waters
of
| AMSList for the last few hours.  Rather, I suspect that the word is there
| to embrace aspects of music that any of us, even when off duty, would
agree
| to call "scientific":  for instance, acoustics.  It would be foolish to
| deny that experiments regarding (let us say) the generation of the
harmonic
| series -- by the controlled application of definable and measurable
forces
| upon a controlled and measurable column of definable and measurable air
--
| could still be called (by the experimenter, at least) "the study of
music".
| And such experiments would fit anyone's definition of "scientific".
| 
| This has absolutely nothing to do with accurate transcription of a MS or
| accurate citation of a source -- those are behaviours that are scholarly
| (and, as someone has pointed out, merely courteous), but it seems to me
| trivializing to say that performing them punctiliously has anything to do
| with making the endeavour in question more scientific. I would be
expected
| to do the same things if I wrote a scholarly essay on (let's say) the
| nature of God, or the extraterrestrial origins of the proportions of 
| King's College Chapel in Cambridge, or the enrollment by Margaret
Thatcher
| and Ronald Reagan in the service of Beelzebub.  The conclusions I might
| reach about God or King's or Lady Thatcher would be radically
unscientific;
| but if I began my essay with a review of the literature, I would be
| expected to get it right..
| 
| Cheers
| Eric Van Tassel
|