Programska knjižica - Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo

assertions of Plato and Aristotle, which is evident from his approach to music
problems, discussing them primarily from the standpoint of paideia, i.e. the
music’s educational role.
Plato’s influence is particularly evident in Gučetić’s Dialogo della bellezza,
written “in Plato’s spirit”, as explicitly stated in the dialogue’s subtitle.
Here Gučetić discusses music from the position of his juvenile Neo-Platonic
metaphysics, where music represents one of the ways by which soul rises
towards beauty. He actually combines Aristotle’s understanding of music as
pleasure with Plato’s elevation of music above all other knowledge, and it
is this particular work that best illustrates Gučetić’s profound appreciation of
music: “It is even better to say that true beauty is that which–by bringing us to
these three skills, i.e. mind by philosophy, eye by love, and ear by music–truly
elevates our soul into pleasure; because by no other sense but by hearing can
our soul be captivated by music, and the ear itself enjoys in no other thing as
much as in the harmony of music. As noise, bringing fear in itself, urges the
fearsome to flight, so the harmony of sounds urges our souls to the pleasure of
beauty. Because of this one should believe that the art of music descended from
the choir of blessed angels, for by its sounding our soul is captivated not so
much with worldly but more with divine beauty; hence Plato believed that our
soul is made of a certain harmony of numbers; so he rightly said in his dialogue
called The Sofist that our life demands a certain harmony of numbers and that
learning music should be given priority to all other teaching.” (translated by
Stanislav Tuksar)
Another interesting issue which could also be connected with the educational
role of music, i.e. with Plato’s notion of paideia, is what we today
call ‘female issue’, because Gučetić pleads for women to be allowed to study
music. Through a discussion on music, he states his views of the position of
women in the society.
Key words: Nikola Vitov Gučetić, Plato, Aristotle, music, paideia, harmony of numbers,
‘female issue’
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