It is not uncommon to read claims of music’s ability to affect our sense of time and its rate of passage. Indeed, such effects are often considered among the most distinctive and prized aspects of musical aesthetics. Yet when it comes to the similarly abstract notion of space and its manipulation by musical structures, theorists are generally silent. My dissertation addresses this gap in the literature and shows how music’s spatial effects arise through an affective engagement with musical works. In this study, I examine an eclectic selection of compositions to determine how the spaces we inhabit are transformed by the music we hear within them. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory of embodied perception, as well as research on acoustics, sound studies, and media theory, I deploy an affective model of spatial perception—a model that links the sense of space with the moment-to-moment needs and desires of the perceiver— to explain how these musical modulations of space occur. My claim is that the manner in which the music solicits our engagement affects how we respond, which in turn affects what we perceive. I begin by discussing the development of recording technology and how fixed media works deemed “spatial music” reinforce a particular conception of space as an empty container in which sound sources are arrayed in specific locations relative to a fixed listening position. After showing how innovative studio techniques have been used to unsettle this conventional spatial configuration, I then discuss examples of Renaissance vocal music, instrumental chamber music, and 20th century electronic music in order to develop a richer understanding of the range of spatial interactions that musical textures and timbres can provide. In my final chapter, I draw upon these varieties of affective engagement to construct a hermeneutic analysis of the spatial experience afforded by Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, thereby modeling a phenomenological method for grounding interpretation in embodied, rather than strictly discursive, practices. By soliciting movement through the call for bodily action, music allows us an opportunity to fit together one world of possibilities with another, thereby providing an occasion for grasping new meanings presented through the work. The spatial aspect of music, therefore, does not consist in merely recognizing an environmental setting populated by individual sound sources. Through the embodied practices of music perception and the malleability of space they reveal, we are afforded an opportunity to reshape our understanding of the world around us.

La thèse interroge le sens et la portée de l’historicité de l’existence à partir de l’œuvre de Dilthey et de sa lecture par Heidegger :qu’est-ce qu’être historique et quelles sont les conséquences d’une telle historicité pour la pensée philosophique ?L’approche diltheyenne d’une telle question repose sur une « psychologie concrète » qui en tentant de saisir la vie dans sa Faktizität s’engage sur la voie d’une anthropologie historique. L’interrogation psychologique et historique de Dilthey est radicalisée par Heidegger, qui reprend la question de l’historicité à partir de son enracinement dans l’« être » de l’existence, c’est-à-dire également à l’horizon d’une pensée renouvelée de la temporalité. Cette dernière conduit au seuil d’une conception de l’« événementialité » de la vie qui, tout en rompant avec Dilthey, permet de réviser les grands thèmes de ce dernier. Le travail de recherche se penche notamment sur le passage d’une herméneutique philosophique à une philosophie herméneutique intégrant l’historicité de l’existence jusque dans la dimension première du sens. Est également examiné le réinvestissement, par cette herméneutique repensée à l’aune d’un concept radicalisé d’historicité, de certains thèmes et concepts de l’herméneutique diltheyenne. La question de savoir comment la philosophie doit assumer sa propre historicité peut dès lors être reprise. Tandis que Dilthey répond à la mise en cause de la possibilité de la métaphysique par l’histoire à travers l’élaboration d’une doctrine de la vision du monde, Heidegger procède à une radicalisation transcendantale du concept d’histoire – cette dernière étant toutefois appelée à être renversée au bénéfice de l’événement.<p><p>The Dissertation investigates the historicity of existence, its meaning and impact, from Wilhelm Dilthey’s Works and Heidegger’s reading of it: What does being historical mean, and what are the consequences of this historicity on philosophical thought? Dilthey’s approach to this problem is based on a “concrete psychology” which, by developing the implications of the facticity of life, leads to an historical anthropology. Heidegger radicalizes this psychological and historical Diltheyan questioning by reconsidering the problem of historicity from the point of view of the “being” of existence, which also involves a renewed conception of temporality. The latter leads to the threshold of a conception of life as “eventiality” which means both a break with Dilthey and the possibility of taking over an improved version of Dilthey’s major issues. The research examines in particular the transition from a philosophical hermeneutics to a hermeneutic philosophy based on the acknowledgment of the radical historicity of life. Heidegger’s appropriation of Diltheyan themes and concepts in the context of this transition is analyzed in a detailed manner. Finally, the question is raised how philosophy has to deal with its historicity. Dilthey’s response to the historical undermining of the very possibility of metaphysics consists in the development of a doctrine of worldviews. Heidegger carries out a transcendental radicalization of the concept of history – the latter however being soon anew reversed for the benefit of the “event”.<p> / Doctorat en Philosophie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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