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. . . The issue of
“science” does not intrude itself
directly upon the occasion of the performance of a musical work, at least
a non-electronically produced work, since . . . there is
at least a question
as to whether the question as to whether musical composition is to be regarded
as a science or not is indeed really a question; but there is no doubt
that the question as to whether musical discourse or—more
precisely—the
theory of music should be subject to the methodological criteria of
scientific method and the attendant scientific language is a question,
except that the question is really not the normative one of whether it
“should be” or “must be,” but the factual one
that it is, not because of
the nature of musical theory, but because of the nature and scope of scientific
method and language, whose domain of application is such that if it is
not extensible to musical theory, then musical theory is not a theory in
any sense in which the term ever has been employed. This should sound neither
contentious nor portentous, rather it should be obvious to the point of
virtual tautology. Assuredly, I am not stating that all of the problems
of musical theory can be resolved automatically and easily by our merely
embracing the latest formulations of the philosophy of science, for neither
music nor the philosophy of science is that simple and static; and the
problems of musical theory are, in many ways, so complex as to carry one
unavoidably and quickly to still highly controversial, still unresolved
questions in philosophy and related fields. . . .
Milton Babbitt
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