#49: Peter Kalkavage on Music and Metaphysics

Today we hear from Peter Kalkavage, a tutor at St John’s College and author of The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Peter and I discuss his writing about philosophy and music. Reading Peter’s writing, you can tell that one of his aims isn’t just to think about music as a fine art, but to think about music as itself a way of thinking. His approach allows him to write about and think through music in some surprising or perhaps just unfamiliar ways: he asks how music contributes to the formation of one’s opinions, one’s beliefs about the world. But then he also writes about music in ways that are familiar, but that require a great deal of imagination and precision. Peter asks why music, particularly classical music and sacred music but also some rock n roll thrown in, why music makes us feel certain ways, gives form to our emotions—in a sense, helps us feel our own emotions.

The Hauenstein Center Collection