The Sensation of Sound and Imagination in a Historical Perspective

Abstract

Sven Hroar Klempe traces the concept of imagination in the history of philosophy and psychology, focusing on the period starting from the German enlightenment, and his chapter deals extensively with the works of a number of prominent scholars from the past three centuries such as Christian Wolff, Alexander Baumgarten, Kant, and Carl Stumpf. Klempe discusses how the imagination of sound and music can be seen as a specific type of imagination, and he elucidates how sound and music provide an alternative understanding of imagination from that provided by language. This discussion focuses on the relationship between sensation and imagination and the complexity of sensory processes that music and sound can reflect in a way that language cannot.