Mind, Body, World- Foundations of Cognitive Science, 2013a

To see that this is analogous to methodological solipsism, consider how we differentiate
compositions from one another. Traditionally, this is done by referring to a
composition’s score (Benson, 2003). That is, compositions are identified in terms
of a particular set of symbols, a particular formal structure. The identification of a
composition does not depend upon identifying which audience has heard it. A composition
can exist, and be identified, in the absence of its audience-as-environment.
Another parallel between the classical mind and classical music is that there
have been significant modern reactions against the Austro-German musical tradition
(Griffiths, 1994, 1995). Interestingly, these reactions parallel many of the reactions
of embodied cognitive science against the classical approach. In later sections of
this chapter we consider some of these reactions, and explore the idea that they make
plausible the claim that “non-cognitive” processes are applicable to classical music.
However, before we do so, let us first turn to consider how the parallels considered
above are reflected in how classical cognitive scientists study musical cognition.
6.2 The Classical Approach to Musical Cognition
In Chapter 8 on seeing and visualizing, we see that classical theories take the purpose
of visual perception to be the construction of mental models of the external,
visual world. To do so, these theories must deal with the problem of underdetermination.
Information in the world is not sufficient, on its own, to completely determine
visual experience.
Classical solutions to the problem of underdetermination (Bruner, 1973;
Gregory, 1970, 1978; Rock, 1983) propose that knowledge of the world—the contents
of mental representations—is also used to determine visual experience. In other
words, classical theories of perception describe visual experience as arising from
the interaction of stimulus information with internal representations. Seeing is a
kind of thinking.
Auditory perception has also been the subject of classical theorization. Classical
theories of auditory perception parallel classical theories of visual perception in
two general respects. First, since the earliest psychophysical studies of audition
(Helmholtz & Ellis, 1954), hearing has been viewed as a process for building internal
representations of the external world.
We have to investigate the various modes in which the nerves themselves are
excited, giving rise to their various sensations, and finally the laws according to
which these sensations result in mental images of determinate external objects,
that is, in perceptions. (Helmholtz & Ellis, 1954, p. 4)
Second, in classical theories of hearing, physical stimulation does not by itself determine
the nature of auditory percepts. Auditory stimuli are actively organized, being
Classical Music and Cognitive Science 273