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Suoni
Buccella, Alessandra
2014
Abstract
Sounds are very tricky objects. We think that we know many things about them. We think, for example, that we perceive them, that they're are the only and immediate objects of auditory perception, but we also think that they are the means through which we perceive their sources. We seem to intuitively believe that material objects “have” sounds, and, at the same time, we tend to resist the idea that sounds are actually “just” properties of something else. We seem to agree with the claim that a deaf person cannot experience sounds (they're not part of this person's “perceivable world”), but we nonetheless believe that Beethoven could compose music because he had found an alternative way to perceive sounds. Finally, at school we've been taught that sounds are identical with elastic waves propagating in a medium, that they're, in this sense, physical events, but nevertheless we seem to think that the real essence of sounds must be something more than their “physical substrate”. This contribute has two goals. On the one hand, to introduce the most influential contemporary theories regarding what sounds properly are. On the other hand, to explain the strengths and weaknesses of each one of these theories, so as to highlight the main problems they face.
Journal
Subjects
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Alessandra Buccella, “Suoni”, in "APhEx 9", 2014, pp. 28
Languages
it
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