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. 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 to describe 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)>
Data
Summary
| Tournament | Edition | Exact Match? | Heard | PPB | Easy % | Medium % | Hard % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 RMP Fest Online Mirror | 05/31/25 | N | 4 | 12.50 | 100% | 25% | 0% |
| 2025 RMP Fest Carleton Mirror | 07/13/25 | Y | 3 | 13.33 | 100% | 33% | 0% |
| 2025 RMP Fest CO Mirror | 08/10/25 | Y | 6 | 18.33 | 100% | 67% | 17% |