Myth, Music & Modernism: the Wagnerian dimension in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and the waves and James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake

The study of Wagner's influence on the modernist novel is an established field with clear room for further contributions. Very little of the criticism undertaken to date takes full cognizance of the philosophical content of Wagner's dramas: a revolutionary form of romanticism that calls into question the very nature of the world, its most radical component being Schopenhauer's version of transcendental idealism. The compatibility of this doctrine with Wagner's earlier work, with its already marked privileging of myth over history, enabled his later dramas, consciously influenced by Schopenhauer, to crown a body of work greater than the sum of its parts. In works by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, the "translation" of Wagnerian ideas into novelistic form demonstrates how they might be applied in "real life". In Mrs Dalloway, the figure of Septimus can be read as partly modelled on Wagner's heroes Siegfried and Tristan, two outstanding examples of the opposing heroic types found throughout his oeuvre, whose contrasting attributes are fused in Septimus's bipolar personality. The Wagnerian pattern also throws light on Septimus's transcendental "relationship" with a woman he does not even know, and on the implied noumenal identity of seemingly isolated individuals. In The Waves, the allusions to both Parsifal and the Ring need to be reconsidered in light of the fact that these works' heroes are all but identical (a fact overlooked in previous criticism); as Wagner's solar hero par excellence, Siegfried is central to the novel's cyclical symbolism. The Waves also revisits the question of identity but in a more cosmic context – the metaphysical unity of everything. In Finnegans Wake, the symbolism of the cosmic cycle is again related to the Ring, as are Wagner's two heroic types to the Shem / Shaun opposition (the Joyce / Woolf parallels here have also been overlooked in criticism to date). All three texts reveal a fascination with the two contrasting faces of a Wagnerian hero who embodies the dual nature of reality, mirroring in himself the eternal rise and fall of world history and, beyond them, the timeless stasis of myth

Does Nietzsche have a coherent view of truth?

Anyone intending to write about Nietzsche faces an immediate problem - How is one to interpret him? I tackle this methodological issue in my first Chapter and set out the various modes of interpretation usually adopted. I also discuss the status of the Nachlass and indicate a personal position with regard to the use of these unpublished notes. In Chapter 2 I focus on whether Nietzsche does have a theory of truth. Early on he claims that truth is an illusion, but I argue that this position is untenable. Some American commentators attribute a pragmatic theory of truth to Nietzsche, but the textual evidence for this is lacking. As for the Coherence Theory, Nietzsche would only have accepted this if he espoused subjective idealism. He clearly rejects all forms of idealism. He was also firmly opposed to the Metaphysical Correspondence Theory. However, there is some evidence that he would have accepted a more conventional view of truth. My third Chapter is more psychological, focusing on motivation. Will to Power is the central concept here and I analyse this in detail. It turns out to be a Janus-faced concept. Internal Will to Power gets linked to asceticism and the Will to Truth, whilst external Will to Power is tied to the creation of values. The final Chapter is really a defence of objectivity. Perspectivism is frequently misinterpreted by Continental thinkers. I try to combat their relativistic readings and argue for a mature perspectivism. The latter does not entail a rejection of truth as commonsensically understood. My Conclusion is that Nietzsche is seeking to establish a more elaborate view of belief which acknowledges the body as a primary source of motivation

Historical Change in the Metaphysical Concept of Pessimism in German Thought (1813-1973): Reaction to Indian Philosophy.

(1) This historical comparative philosophical analysis studies the function of Indian thought in German metaphysical pessimism. The discussion follows a line of primary focusing points which ensue consecutively from the range of changing views (presented in part I) held by a selection of German representatives of pessimism. Each one of them is introduced throng his writings and analysed both with regard to his pessimism and his Indian connections, as far as possible. This analytical process isolates the most essential cues and concepts. These mark the development of our understanding of the thinker himself (i.e. his form of pessimism), and provide the special connection points through which he can be linked with the other pessimists. In this manner an intra-German set of historical relationships is established. (2) The isolated cues and concepts, furthermore, formally provide the first links with that actual Indian sphere of thought (part II) which appears to be responsible for exerting some more or less specific influence on the individual views of the German thinkers. This hypothetical assumption of a pessimistic German response to Indian thought is centred on a second set of historical relationships, namely, those between the various German views and the sphere of Indian philosophy. (3) The comparative character of this study necessitates a special methodology in order to bridge the natural gap between the German (European) and the Indian tradition of thought. The greater part of the Introduction has, therefore, been allotted to the exposition of a hermeneutic approach to the problem. This hermeneutic is essentially a connective device. It makes it possible to focus the comparative argument on the Indian conceptions behind the (supposedly Indian bat, in fact, German) cues and concepts in question. (4) The combined analysis implies a redefinition of the concept of metaphysical pessimism

The cultural context of the theories of Heinrich Schenker

The thesis presents Schenker's theory of musical structure as grounded in the (mainly pedagogic) music theory and practice of the eighteenth century, like the music of the period of German classicism to which it relates. It argues that Scheriker was right to see his theory as having a wider significance than the strictly music-theoretical, and that the music-structural concept which he elaborated and codified is inseparable from the work as a whole. Set apart from the aesthetic and cultural outlook from which it emerged, the historical and critical studies of the repertory and of the theoretical literature, it may still be usable, but it is profoundly impoverished and loses the very particular meaning it had for Schenker. The thesis proposes that while Schenker' s formulation of his structural concept is unique,. the concept itself is not, but was a cultural property which Schenker re-discovered and that it is in this re-discovery as much as in the thing itself that the significance of his work resides. The view of Schenker as an eccentric is counterbalanced by a picture of a thinker moulded by experiences anything but unique to him, but, nevertheless unique to a particular historical phase. It is suggested that in the absence of a minimal degree of understanding of this phase and these experiences no judgement of Schenker as thinker,' writer, even musician, can properly be made. Chapter One gives a brief account of Schenker' s career. Chapter Two attempts to define a context for his exploration of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pedagogic theory. Chapter Three attempts to dispose of sane mid-century shibboleths inhibiting understanding of Schenker. Chapter Four explores the radical changes in the character of musical scholarship taking place in Schenker' s lifetime, relating these to developments in other fields, especially in philology, and considers their effect on him. Chapter Five considers Schenker' s attitude towards aesthetic and scientific theories in circulation in his day and their contribution to the formulation of his music-structural concept and its development. The main focus of this chapter is the metaphysics of music of Schopenhauer. Chapter Six examines sane of the problems arising from Schenker' S historical-cultural situation and considers the enabling role played for him by the work of Nietzsche

The Routes of Philosophy: Paul Deussen, Indian Non-Dualism and Universal Metaphysics

It is the nature of comparative philosophy to reflect on different orders of knowledge and different forms of discourse. The question of the validity of knowledge is essential to the comparative works of Paul Deussen. By analysing metaphysics into its basic elements, he was able to gather and compare the efforts of many different times and places. This is to say that Deussen endeavoured to use the elements of metaphysics to reconcile the mutually incompatible claims of Reason and Revelation. He pursued this reconciliation in a non-Hegelian manner which did not exclude revelation and which allowed the status of religion, philosophy and science to be preserved, whether eastern or western in origin. While Deussen agrees to an extent with the Hegelian postulate that philosophy only ever emerges in a particular alignment with science and ethics, he insists on including religion in the account of the origin of philosophy. For this reason, he was able to include India's exegetical traditions of the fundamentally theologico-philosophical treatises of the Veda in his comparative and historical work. This was an entirely unprecedented and an untimely philosophical enterprise, and one which remained unparalleled for almost half a century. My thesis explores the manner in which he articulates and validates a unified, universal science of metaphysics. It examines his transformation of the scientific resources of physiology and psychology into the principle of the Will and follows his elaboration of a metaphysical morality based on the negation of this Will. However I also explore the potential in the most significant text for this thesis, The System of the Vedanta (1883), for a non-metaphysical way of thinking and acting. I argue that Deussen's text marks the creation of a singular relation to the Outside of the type of existence ordered by western thought. Deussen's history of philosophy leads me finally to evaluate his project for the renewal of philosophy and culture on the basis of universal metaphysics. From this emerge the suggestions for further work concerning Nietzsche's relationship to the Vedantic concept of 'beyond good and evil' in particular and to Indian philosophy and the revaluation of all values in general

Aesthetics and ethics at the intersection: Contemporary reflections on the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer

In the last hundred years of commentarial literature on Schopenhauer, the breadth and profundity of the relationships that exist between aesthetics and ethics in his philosophy have been overlooked and overshadowed by studies of Schopenhauer as a metaphysician. This exploration of the status of the metaphysical connection between aesthetics and ethics in his philosophy. In order to establish the significance of this connection for contemporary debates on aesthetics and ethics, I elucidate Schopenhauer's philosophy in a manner that addresses its inconsistencies and inadequacies whilst being conducive to the clear articulation and development of its key themes and central insights

Waiting in vain? Metaphysics, modernity and music in the work of T. W. Adorno, Martin Heidegger and Luigi Nona

This work enters into debates about about the meaning and significance of messianism in the Anglophone context of 'continental philosophy'. It does so by investigating the work of two traditionally opposed German philosophers, T. W. Adorno and Martin Heidegger. These figures stand behind the alternative traditions of recent philosophical messianism: historical materialist and neo-Heideggerian, or post-Hegelian and anti-Hegelian. Where the former tradition classically proposes the possibility of progress in, or towards history, without clearly questioning the metaphysical grounds of this possibility, the latter tradition questions the ontological nature of grounding itself, but often at the price of forfeiting a concept of historical change. The tum to messianism within historical materialism, inspired by Walter Benjamin, involves an attempt to give an account of these grounds. While sympathising with the motivation behind this tum, I suggest that it risks upholding a metaphysics that is equally as problematic as the one it opposes. I seek to interpret Adorno's late conception of an expression of 'waiting in vain' as a critique of historical materialist messianism. Since Adorno's idea is fragmentary, and still relies upon traditional metaphysics, it is read in relation to Heidegger's ontological account of waiting, according to his overall understanding of metaphysical modernity as a will to domination. The question of waiting connects the thought of Adorno and Heidegger - this has been understated in the secondary literature. I suggest that the connection is all the more convincing when their respective ideas of waiting are understood in relation to their philosophies of music and of 'the musical'. This theme is examined within a broader context of music and philosophy. It is pursued in order to respond to the overall problematic. A 'musical' concept of waiting can address some of the metaphysical problems encountered in a philosophy 'after' messianism, because it can propose an alternative notion of promise. The example of this expression is the music of Luigi Nono. A critical examination of his works is taken to elucidate the spatiotemporal character of an expression of waiting in vain, in a manner that both enriches and problematises the solely philosophical readings