Musical experience and symbolic-transcendental in Ernst Cassirer and Susanne Langer

Abstract

The present article has the objective of deepening the debate about the notion of musical experience, explaining the epistemological aspects of a philosophical interpretation that we call symbolic-transcendental. It is the theoretical project initiated by Ernst Cassirer, and taken up by Susanne Langer, who argues that the manifestations of Culture are particular symbolic forms, namely: knowledge, language, myth, religion and art, from which it is possible to the human spirit to mean the real in an objective way. The capacity to symbolize, in turn, is constituted as a result of an operative function, transcendental and valid a priori, which is the foundational aspect that marks the difference between men and animals, for example. In order for the musical experience to be understood in terms of the symbolic-transcendental interpretation that we will construct here, we will undertake an argumentative course whose three central moments are: i) the understanding of art as a particular symbolic form, ii) the distinction between art and language as symbolic forms and as a necessary condition for the theory of art of Susanne Langer and iii) the constitutive aspects of musical experience (signification, production and reception).