Psychology of music and the theory of Einfühlung (empathy)

Introduction

The dissatisfaction with the weighty speculative system of German classical philosophy was demonstrated round the middle of the nineteenth century through an increasing amount of attention paid to the exact sciences and the scientific experiment. Science was, of course, needed in the age of increasing industrialization, and it is not easy to establish the causal link: there is no easy or straightforward answer to the question whether the scientific process was made possible by the expansion of industry or whether the important scientific discoveries were directly responsible for the increased activity in the sphere of commerce and industrial production. These questions in any case relate only to the practical aspect of science, to the discoveries which could be easily and quickly applied, whereas the term ‘science’ covers, somewhat paradoxically, the field of speculation, or at least that area of speculation where the conceptual thought can be supported and illustrated by measurement, experiment and quantifiable data.

A drive towards an objective presentation of facts and a high regard for mathematics were already present in Herbart's philosophy, but Herbart himself did not go as far as to incorporate experiment in his system of philosophy. Besides, in spite of his opposition to Hegelian metaphysics, Herbart still belonged to the tradition of a complete philosophical system of which aesthetics was only a part. Aesthetics thus conceived still concerned itself with the method of defining a work of art rather than with the way in which a work of art is comprehended by the recipient.