An evening featuring thrilling quartet performances and conversation about the relationship between moral philosophy and music.
Join Eric Nelson, Professor of Government at Harvard University, and the Project LENS team to explore the way that moral philosophers throughout history have looked to music in order to support their arguments. Starting with Plato, we’ll discover the ways that philosophers have, for example, tried to find grounding for theories such as moral realism in the harmonic series and the consonance-dissonance dichotomy. We’ll then explore the idea that prolonged unresolved dissonance in music can be thought of as an “internal critique” of this argument, and beyond that, atonal music might be seen as a parallel to the view that moral facts are not part of the fabric of the world.
boston.forward.com/articles/186548/classical-music-through-a-contemporary-lens/
thecrimson.com/article/2015/2/17/project-lens-myth-violence/
Watch the video below to learn more about Project LENS.
Photos & Videos
The Search for Morality in Music:
Credits
LENS team: Ariel Mitnick, Alan Toda-Ambaras, Rainer Crosett
Featured speaker: Eric Nelson, Professor of Government at Harvard University
Guest musicians: Mason Yu, Jinsun Hong