Theory Of Music In Ancient Chinese Philosophy — страница 9

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something that is by nature fixed. The five regions have different customs; the same thing has different designations. We simply select one name and use it as a sign. Now the sage exhausts the principles. This means that whatever is natural can be examined; there is no obscurity that cannot be illuminated. But if the principle involved is hidden, then you will not see it even if you are close by. Therefore, the language of a different land cannot be forcibly understood In this round of thrust and parry, Jikang argues that mind does not have an essential relationship with language and even in some cases, language is not even sufficient to manifest mind. What this implies is that the presentation of language does not possess intrinsic meaning. In this case, one meaning can be

expressed in an array of languages. Likewise, the proposition that a single thing can be expressed in other different languages signifies that language does not have a fixed correspondence to human mind. The claim that language is not essentially directed to one object, but that it chooses one naming and takes it as a criterion has a common ground with the explanation of lanuguage autonomy. The meaning and the presentation of the word are not essentially related, rather they are artificially tied to each other and are embedded in social custom and are often to be used in social context. If one applies this to music language, presentation of music language itself does not entail necessarily the intention of the composer. Hence, it is natural that a multiplicity of interpretations

follow upon the heels of actually listening to music. However, this does not mean that the listener is inferior in his endowed aesthetic facility, such that he cannot grasp one secured motive of the composer. The claim that there is no fixed relationship between the expected connotation relation between the presentation of words and the meanings of words is in keeping with what is called “Yanbujinyi-lun” (the doctrine that language cannot exhaust meanings). This is embedded in Wei-Jin XuanXue thought and carries an important implication: a recipient of art can draw more diverse and profound aesthetic impressions from an artist’s intended message. Further, the claim that language is deficient to reveal the human heart amounts to a recognition of the limitation of language,

thus paving the way for a world of aesthetical intuition that draws on intuition only. Jikang verifies the absence of a fixed correspondence between emotion and sound as follows ; Different regions have different customs; singing and crying are the done all the same. If we mix them up and use them, some hear crying and are pleased; others listen to singing and become sad. But their feelings of grief and joy are the same. Now if you use the same feelings to produce completely different sounds, is this not because music has no constant relation to emotion. Here Jikang uses different customs in different regions and even strains it to the extreme case where some hear crying and are pleased and others listen to singing and become sad. This explains how identical emotions can be

expressed in different sounds. The inconstancy of sound, namely expression of sounds relative to certain emotions, has no constancy and hence proves that out of internal necessity sound does not express ceertain emotions. Though Jikang’s viewpoint is based on this premise, he does not contradict the traditional view that poetry and music are expressions of human emotion. Yet, two sounds whose main characters are harmony, “gung and shang,” are considered the most moving of the cords. Namely, sound is not constant, thus this chord is not indicative of any certain emotion, those who in grief will hear the grieved sounds being created. In harmony of sound there is no fixed form, but nothing but the grieved heart has something and this signifies that those who are in grief in

their hearts will hear only grief from a chord. Here, Jikang raises the question of how to know and say one of Zhuangzi’s propositions, namely the proposition that all kinds of sound is identical with all chords created in nature. The phenomenon of hearing only grief from a chord dvelopes into custom and when it reaches the point of influencing politics, all become sounds of sorrow at this point. This explains the claim that the sound of a collapsing nation provokes sorrow. Those who feel sorrow hear some chords and take them only as sorrowful. This means that by knowing responses of people toward music you can know social customs. That a chord has no form means that there is no sorrow and joy in a chord and emotion of sorrow and joy is only contained in human heart. The idea