Don’t think positive

The present volume, Don't Think Positive, examines positivist trends in musicology from various perspectives, thereby contributing to the methodological debate in musicology. Restricting research to determining and recording what is the case—whether, for example, in approaches to empirical aesthetics or musicological source philology—runs the risk of neglecting the significance and interpretive nature of musical works of art. Musicology thus threatens to become unaesthetic and, at times, to fail to think in an emphatic sense. On the other hand, the uncritical recording of what is the case—for example, in the form of a supposedly naturally given physiology of human music perception and evaluation—serves to codify the social status quo and is thus ideological. This volume brings together various contributions from musicology, philosophy, and sociology that are devoted to a critique of positivism or offer possible counter-models. The contributions are based on a series of lectures organized by the Frankfurt am Main Working Group of Critical Musicologists in 2017–18.

The author Oliver Fürbeth points out that the title of his article should actually have been "Musical knowledge as a fundamental category of musicology. Exemplary notes on Beethoven's 'Heilig Dankgesang'."

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