Galileo and the ‘Invention’ of Opera

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Intimations of the Gap

   • Fred Kersten

   Pages 1-20

3. The Gap Represented

   • Fred Kersten

   Pages 21-44

4. The Gap at the Center

   • Fred Kersten

   Pages 45-78

5. Room at the Center

   • Fred Kersten

   Pages 79-117

6. The Room, the Universe And the Gap

   • Fred Kersten

   Pages 119-153

7. Life at the Gap

   • Fred Kersten

   Pages 155-186

8. Baroque Twins: Science and Opera: The Fin Lieto of the Baroque Formulation of Consciousness

   • Fred Kersten

   Pages 187-213

9. The Enclave of the Eccentricity of Ordinary Life

   • Fred Kersten

   Pages 215-233

10. The Baroque Formulation of Consciousness In The Domain Of Phenomenological Clarification

    • Fred Kersten

    Pages 235-256

11. Back Matter

    Pages 257-282

    PDF

Intended for scholars in the fields of philosophy, history of science and music, this book examines the legacy of the historical coincidence of the emergence of science and opera in the early modern period. But instead of regarding them as finished products or examining their genesis, or `common ground', or `parallel' ideas, opera and science are explored by a phenomenology of the formulations of consciousness (Gurwitsch) as compossible tasks to be accomplished in common (Schutz) which share an ideal possibility or `essence' (Husserl). Although the ideas of Galileo and Monteverdi form the parameters of the domain of phenomenological clarification, the scope of discussion extends from Classical ideas of science and music down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, but always with reference to the experience of sharing the sociality of a common world from which they are drawn (Plessner) and to which those ideas have given shape, meaning and even substance. At the same time, this approach provides a non-historicist alternative to understanding the arts and science of the modern period by critically clarifying the idea of whether their compossibility can rest on any other formulation of consciousness.

• Aron Gurwitsch
• Edmund Husserl
• phenomenology
• philosophy
• time

• University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, USA

  Fred Kersten

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