Question

This thinker argued that music can’t be understood by philosophy since it has no propositional content in the book Music and the Ineffable. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this philosopher and musicologist who wrote biographies of Fauré, Ravel, and Debussy. A 1967 book by this student of Henri Bergson argues that forgiveness has supernatural power, building on his much earlier concept of “bad conscience.”
ANSWER: Vladimir Jankélévitch (“zhan-ke-LAY-vitch”)
[10m] Robin James argued that Jankélévitch’s characterization of music as feminine influenced the theories of femininity in this book, which is based on a dissertation that Jankélévitch evaluated. In this book, Emmanuel Levinas argued that ethics arises from an encounter with the Other.
ANSWER: Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority [or Totalité et Infini: essai sur l’extériorité]
[10e] Jankélévitch’s theory of musical ineffability inspired this thinker’s description of the “problem of the adjective” in an essay from Image-Music-Text, which also includes his essay “The Death of the Author.”
ANSWER: Roland Barthes
<FW, Philosophy (19th/20th Century)>

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Data

Summary

TournamentEditionExact Match?HeardPPBEasy %Medium %Hard %
2025 RMP Fest Online Mirror05/31/25Y412.50100%25%0%
2025 RMP Fest Carleton Mirror07/13/25N313.33100%33%0%
2025 RMP Fest CO Mirror08/10/25N618.33100%67%17%