Auditory Phenomena

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In a world that is steeped primarily in visual perception, auditory phenomena face an ongoing struggle for importance. The significance of sound, typically taken for granted, is underappreciated. This lack of appreciation of auditory phenomena has resulted in an overreliance on visual imagery and experience. Sartre’s look of the Other, Heidegger’s vision of Being, and the Appolonian visual world are just some of the examples of philosophy’s visually focused concepts. Focusing solely on sight during experience has resulted in inattentiveness to the “global fullness of experience” according to Ihde, and I believe that an appreciation of auditory phenomena is necessary for an accurate construction of reality in the phenomenological sense of embodiment. Although they do not directly address auditory phenomena, I believe it is possible to connect sounds to the sense of embodiment that arises from Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty.

Sound is a vibration or wave of air molecules caused by the motion of an object. The wave is a compression wave that travels through the air at a speed dependent on the temperature. Without movement there could be no sound. When an object moves or vibrates, the air molecules around the object also vibrate. Each molecule moves back and forwards only a tiny distance, but it is enough to cause the air particles to bump into each other. This creates areas where there are many molecules pushed close together (compression); and areas where molecules are spread far apart (rarefactions). These compressions and rarefactions move outwards away from the sound source in circles. A sound wave is created when a series of these pressure changes/waves move through the air. A sound wave contains energy, which in turn m...

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... May 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. .

Pasnau, Robert. "What Is Sound?" The Philosophical Quarterly 49.196 (1999): 309-24. Wiley Online Library. University of St. Andrews, 7 Jan. 2003. Web. 01 May 2011. .

Pilotta, Joseph J. Interpersonal Communication: Essays in Phenomenology and Hermeneutics. [Pittsburgh, Pa.]: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology, 1982. Print.

Smith, David W. "Phenomenology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford Univeristy, 16 Nov. 2003. Web. 30 Apr. 2011. .

"sound." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 30 April. 2011. .

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