Music Can Replace Philosophy

Pythagoras was a venerated musician, even called the father of musical theory. When he was given the death sentence, Socrates felt he had not dedicated his life to creating music as much as he would have wished, so he composed samples before taking the hemlock. Karl Popper, arguably one of the most influential philosophers of science, drew his biggest ideas from music. Philosophy owes a tonne to music. But alas, where do we encounter such facts?

When I was writing my first book (I say that because I will soon be releasing a second one), I used hip-hop songs to begin every chapter. My first chapter honoured the lines from J. Cole:

Long live your idols
May they never be your rivals.

When my editor saw this, he advised against it. He suggested I replace it with the wise sayings of philosophers. I didn’t budge. My work was introducing something new. I wanted it to have flavour. Plus, I had a strong affiliation for music, and I wanted it to be visible in my work, especially a piece of work that defies conventional odds. All the while, I didn’t know I was summoning the powers from long ago.

Music was the tool used to defy and deify. It was the element legends relied on to overcome obstacles. True to my story, I was using hip-hop to overcome the obstacles of defying the “written law” of Natural Selection, which is so sacrosanct that anyone who thinks it is wrong must be nuts. Well, music is a haven for anyone who is nuts. Perhaps I am one. Because who the hell thinks light behaves like an organism? I do.

Music’s origins are tied to leaders, lawgivers, philosophers, healers, and your popular and favourite superhero. All movies with superhero quests have specific theme music to accompany them, in the same way music accompanied Orpheus to the underworld as he went to rescue his loved one. What I don’t understand, however, is why his lover went to a world governed by Hades. But that’s beside the point. The more important lesson is the role of music in inspiring and defying.

What is the essence of philosophy if not to defy? How can you defy if you’re not inspired? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you music. Kendrick begins our article, illustrating how music is linked to philosophy’s biggest armoury: questions.

See, I got to question it all; family, friends, fans, cats, dogs
Trees, plants, grass, how the wind blow, Murphy’s Law

The origins of Western philosophy are not so much in questions but in music.

One of the most venerated structures of music is the dactylic hexameter. It matches the anatomy of the finger (dactyl). Like the finger with its three bones, a single dactyl has a long syllable, followed by two short ones. Six such parts form the dactylic hexameter.

To those who sought to consult with the gods, Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi, would convey instructions in dactylic hexameter. This method was regarded as the highest form of narration, one literally conveyed by the supreme beings.

Homer was a Greek poet. He wrote the Odyssey and the Iliad, classic books, in dactylic hexameter. Poetry was regarded highly and divinely inspired when it followed such a structure, as it did with the Delphic Oracle. The Oracle is regarded as the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo, not unsurprisingly, as Apollo is regarded as the god of the sun, light, music, poetry, prophecy, and healing. Music tends to cover all these aspects, as great musicians need a flash of inspiration, a metaphor linking light with ideation, poetry, which touches the structure of music, and music being a means to heal and prophesy in a way that seems difficult to forget. Good music is difficult to forget.

What’s more, music defies. It runs counter to what Pythagoras and his school believed in. That is, a perfect world. Divine inspiration. By developing rules such as the musical ratios, accounting for octaves (2:1 ratios) and perfect fifths (3:2 ratios). The mathematics came later. What preceded this discrete breakdown was music.

Nevertheless, what Pythagoras may not have surmised was that music can create harmonies, but it can also defy and break rules, like the irreversibility of the dead. Music can indeed reverse what we have largely taken to be irreversible, much like Orpheus believed he could bring back his wife from the land of the dead.

The world usually remembers Pythagoras from the mathematical theorem for finding the accurate length of the hypotenuse in a right-angled triangle. This school of thought believed that the world was perfect. Hippasus challenged this belief by developing irrational numbers. For simplicity, think of a right-angled triangle of equal sides measuring 1 unit. It should have a hypotenuse of length equal to the square root of 2 units. This number is irrational. It ran counter to the ideals of the Pythagorean school. Hippasus, so the legend goes, had to be tied to a rock and thrown into the sea to drown.

This is indeed what most powers do to prevent the world from knowing the truth. They bury it. So let’s unearth it. Who better than Socrates, the icon of Western philosophy?

Socrates had mentors. One of them was Parmenides. Parmenides’ most famous work, On Nature, introduced his ideas to the world. His philosophy? Change is an illusion. This body of work was a sung oral poem. Music. It inspired one of his famous pupils, Zeno, who developed the famous paradoxes to defend his teacher’s ideas.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of them all is that On Nature is written in classic dactylic hexameter, just like Homer’s works or the Delphic declarations. Music was the language of the gods. Humans who composed music were considered close to the gods, close enough to gain inspiration from them, and guide humanity by the divine language.

A good musician is supposed to conduct. The leader of an orchestra, the conductor, holds a staff, classically bequeathed to Hesiod, the laurel, by the Muses as a sign of musical authority. The tradition continues to date, where the conductor waves this staff like the bus or train conductor; they are supposed to guide the musical travellers from one destination to the next. A philosopher is meant to guide the naïve student from a point of premise to conclusion without begging the question. Philosophy, thus, borrows from music and carries a structure of a journey. There must be a beginning and an end. And a lesson.

Parmenides did not only inspire Zeno. He was also a mentor to Socrates. While most Western Philosophy claims that all philosophy is footnotes to Plato, this remains the case because Plato wrote down his ideas. Socrates did not. He believed writing may tamper with memory. So he taught his ideas without putting them down. Plato did the opposite. In several of his works, he tries to capture Socrates’ ideas. And thus, philosophy took root through the written word, but the “Hippasus” version of its origin, the one that defies, remains largely untold.

I too once believed that writing was superior to music. Before anyone sang, they had to have written the work. What I missed out was the inspiration. Music comes to the artist, in mystical form, almost like the fabled divine interventions. The ones who write it down are remembered and celebrated in history. This amorphous insight is the origin of philosophy.

Karl Popper, the philosopher of science, did not know how we come up with ideas. His philosophy worked only after the idea was conjectured. This much he had surmised by studying music. The tenets of the scientific method and falsification originate from understanding music. Since scientific ideas gain credence through overhauls, or in Kuhnian parlance, paradigmatic shifts, many of these ideas have a basis in music.

Here’s Socrates just before he took the hemlock:

The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: Make and cultivate music, said the dream. And hitherto I had imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music.

Socrates has said it. Present philosophy is far removed from these ideas. You don’t expect to write a serious body of work in philosophy if you include music. By now, you should surmise how strange that is, since music was the root of philosophy. Today, most classes of philosophy teach semantics, one reason, I guess, why most people have hardly taken it seriously.

You know what people take seriously? Music. In the churches, music is considered more powerful than prayer. The most powerful prayers are often written in rhyme, like the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.

In concerts, music is sung by a whole organism of people, singing along to a band, as the musician conducts them through their raw emotions as they sing their hearts out.

In rap, especially when two artists beef, they have to battle it out. It can get that serious. It was so serious, it cost the lives of two of hip-hop’s great MCs.

During grief, music is used to send the dead to rest in peace while consoling the living.

During adversity, to strengthen resolve, and in the words of Sauti Sol, aver that brighter days are yet to come. Alusa affirms it — music is the best education. I cannot compete with that. You can appreciate that through some of the biggest philosophical ideas.

Stoicism uses everyday examples to master one’s reactions, focusing on what they can control and what they cannot. Dr. Dre captures this in his lines:

It ain’t that I’m too big to listen to the rumors
It’s just that I’m too damn big to pay attention to ‘em
That’s the difference

Classical Stoicism through and through.

Existentialism deals with free will in a rudderless life, as opposed to the dangers of nihilism. These are echoed in Eminem’s lines:

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go
You only got one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
Cause opportunity comes once in a lifetime

This is his conclusion after the premise:

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

That last line shows two opposing ideas — existentialism and nihilism.

Pragmatism deals with the practical application of ideas. Empiricism follows from pragmatism. Actions have consequences. J. Cole nails this candidly in 4 Your Eyez Only:

He said “Jermaine, I knew you since we was children I never asked for nothing
When times was hard I never had discussions with you begging you to help me
I dealt with the repercussions of my actions

Or when Lauryn Hill advises:

Girls you know you better, watch out
Some guys, some guys are only, about
That thing, that thing, that thing

Or when a rapper beefs with another. The back-and-forth is the action and reactions of life.

I can’t think of a rapper who captures idealism and realism better than Lupe Fiasco. Soak in this line:

You gotta treat your vocal cords like it’s a fortress
And treat every single one of your words like reinforcements

Lupe takes it further by writing rap that follows dialogues, like the one we see in Plato’s works:

“Wow”, said the patron with a smile
That’s the most interesting diatribe I’ve heard in a while
How you articulated the nature and put it all on trial
Took it up to heaven then put it on the ground
The painter asked the patron, “Can you stand up on the pile?
I’ve had a flash of inspiration, my creativeness aroused”
The model took its place, the painter grabbed a lighter
Doused the shit in gasoline and set it all on fire

Music goes further than Western Philosophy. Love is expressed in the East. Cooperation was the dominant idea, while the West embraced Darwinian competition. Surprised why the Black Eyed Peas would ask the question: Where is the love? Later, one of their members would partner with Eva Simons to ask, “Can you feel the love?” J. Cole would sum it up by saying, “Love yours.”

Hedonism, which seeks levels of happiness, is seen in Drake’s lyrics in the song, The Motto, when he tells his listeners that you only live once (YOLO).

Now witness as Kendrick Lamar fuses several schools of thought:

I love myself [hedonism]
The world is a ghetto with big guns and picket signs [realism]
I love myself
But it can do what it want, whenever it want, I don’t mind [nihilism and existentialism]
He said I got to get up, life is more than suicide [stoicism]
I love myself
One day at a time, the sun gon’ shine [empiricism]

Or, most bluntly, Kendrick insists in another philosophic bar:

Won’t you look to your left and right? Make sure you ask your friends
When shit hit the fan, is you still a fan?

Several rappers combine these features of philosophy in their songs. We just don’t take time to notice them. It gets sequestered, like powerful music.

Plato wanted those who could get close to the language of the gods to be intellectually gifted. It was his way of seeking immortality. Slaves, on the other hand, could achieve it simply through music. To establish hierarchy, music is dismissed as intellectual effluvia, and rational thought is deified. Music and Hippasus suffered the same fate, when in reality, music gave philosophy structure, inspiration, ideas, and continues to germinate despite efforts to bury it.

So when I wrote my book quoting several musical references, I didn’t know I was tapping into the ancient tradition of the greatest leaders, thinkers, philosophers, and poets of all time.

To finalize, here’s Kendrick:

“The caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it
Its only job is to eat or consume everything around it
In order to protect itself from this mad city
While consumin’ its environment, the caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive
One thing it noticed is how much the world shuns him, but praises the butterfly
The butterfly represents the talent, the thoughtfulness and the beauty within the caterpillar
But having a harsh outlook on life, the caterpillar sees the butterfly as weak
And figures out a way to pimp it to his own benefits
Already surrounded by this mad city, the caterpillar goes to work on the cocoon which institutionalizes him
He can no longer see past his own thoughts, he’s trapped
When trapped inside these walls certain ideas take root, such as going home, and bringin’ back new concepts to this mad city
The result? Wings begin to emerge, breakin’ the cycle of feelin’ stagnant
Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations that the caterpillar never considered
Endin’ the internal struggle
Although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different
They are one and the same”
What’s your perspective on that?

Music need not replace philosophy. It can exist without philosophy, which seems to be the case today.

However, when you pay close attention, you can trace the philosophy in your most favourite music.

I have grown up with music. My favourite movie is The Sound of Music. My first book hopes to unite the lovers of music and science. And here I am, tracing history through music, learning every day about this powerful tool.

Indeed, even without the analytical version of philosophy, in the words of Maria, the intellectual hills will continue to be alive with the sound of music.

Admittedly, several songs have inspired this article. However, as with how I structure my writing, this is the one I will append at the end, as it is extremely philosophical. It also captures the story of the caterpillar and the butterfly. Source — YouTube