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COMPOSITION, RESEARCH AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE: A RESPONSE TO JOHN CROFT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2015

Camden Reeves
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Abstract

John Croft's ‘Composition is Not Research’ (TEMPO Vol. 69, No. 272 (2015), pp. 6–11) argues that, ‘the very idea that musical composition is a form of research is a category error’ (p. 6). My response argues that Croft's analysis is borne of a widespread, misguided and essentialist attempt to reduce all research to the paradigm of scientific method, and that he accepts this paradigm uncritically. Whilst asserting that ‘composition is research’ does not entail a category mistake (as the whole point about research is that it is not delimited in any way), assuming that all research must be reducible to the scientific paradigm of method does entail the requisite reification to constitute such a mistake. The imposition of this reductionist paradigm has a distorting impact on the Humanities more generally and, whilst these distortions are particularly acute with musical composition, that is no reason to single it out for persecution. I argue that where the tenets of scientific method are adopted outside of science, this constitutes, more often than not, superficial pseudo-science (or scientism), whereby the tenets of scientific method are fetishized and applied divorced from the complete scientific method and scientific objectives. I conclude that the Humanities would do better to develop its own paradigms – paradigms that are better suited and intrinsic to its respective disciplines.

Type
COMPOSITION, PERFORMANCE AND RESEARCH: A DEBATE
Information
Tempo , Volume 70 , Issue 275 , January 2016 , pp. 50 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 Croft, John, ‘Composition is Not Research’, TEMPO, Vol. 69, No. 272 (2015), pp. 6–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 I use the terms ‘pseudo-science’ and ‘scientism’ as interchangeable.

3 See Julian Baggini and Peter S. Fosl, The Philosopher's Toolkit (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 72–4.

4 Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Middlesex: Hutchinson, 1949), pp. 17–20.

5 Croft, ‘Composition is not Research’, p. 8.

6 Much in research, even within scientific research, adds to rather than describes the world. Medical research is principally aimed at adding to or improving the world, rather than describing it. For an example of science adding to rather than describing the world, consider the isolation of Graphene by Andre Greim and Kostya Novoselov at the University of Manchester in 2004. See http://www.graphene.manchester.ac.uk/explore/the-story-of-graphene/ (accessed 3 October 2015).

7 Karl Popper defines Methodological Essentialism as, ‘the view that … the task of knowledge or “science” is to discover and describe the true nature of things, i.e. their hidden reality or essence’. See The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol. I (London: Routledge, 1945), p. 29.

8 As John Searle puts it, to determine whether something concerns external reality on the one hand, or ideological concepts on the other, one need only ask: ‘Could the feature exist if there had never been any human beings or other sorts of sentient beings?’ See John Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (London: Penguin, 1995).

9 Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol. II (London: Routledge, 1945), p. 11.

10 For Bertrand Russell, ‘the question of “essence” is one as to the use of words. We apply the same name [i.e. ‘research’, in this instance], on different occasions, to somewhat different occurrences, which we regard as manifestations of the same “thing”. In fact, however, this is only a verbal convenience … . The question is purely linguistic: a word may have an essence, but a thing cannot’. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1946), p. 211.

11 In the words of Bryan Magee: ‘The notion that precise knowledge requires precise definition is demonstrably wrong. Physicists are not in the habit of debating the meanings of terms like “energy”, “light”, and all the other concepts they habitually employ. … Yet the most accurate and extensive knowledge we have is in the physical sciences. … A term like “sand-dune” or “wind” is certainly very vague. … However, for many geologists’ purposes, these terms are quite precise; and for other purposes, when a higher degree of differentiation is needed, he can always say “dunes between 4 and 30 feet high” or “wind velocity of between 20 and 40 miles an hour”’. Bryan Magee, Popper (Glasgow: Fontana, 1973), pp. 49–50.

12 ‘A definition cannot establish the meaning of a term any more than a logical derivation can establish the truth of a statement; both can only shift this problem back. The derivation shifts the problem of truth back to the premises, the definition shifts the problem of meaning back to the defining terms i.e., the terms that make up the defining formula. But these, for many reasons, are likely to be just as vague and confusing as the terms we started with; and in any case, we should have to go on to define them in turn; which leads to new terms, which too must be defined. And so on, to infinity’. Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol. II, pp 19–20.

13 Croft argues that the problem of research questions for composition is that, ‘… the answer to any conceivable “research question” that might be involved is known in advance’. Croft, ‘Composition is not Research’, p. 6. I would argue that the problem here is in fact the reverse: as composers do not formulate their aims in terms of questions in advance, such questions are formulated post hoc, once the process of research is already complete or (in the case of grant applications) at least underway, i.e. once the composer has already solved all or at least some of the problems. Indeed this is the case here; Croft is formulating questions for programmes of research that have already been completed. It is only this that makes such questions appear trivial. Croft's hypothetical research question for serialism is a good case in point: ‘Can I make music in which all pitch classes are played equally often?’ But making ‘music in which all pitch classes are played equally often’, is not itself the research question, or even the research aim. Rather it is the solution to a much more complicated research aim: the aim to create music that is aesthetically powerful (an aim that concerns all composers) and (in Schoenberg's case) progressive as well.

14 This is more attributable to a process of attrition than one of design or conspiracy. The powerful influence of the sciences themselves within the Academy no doubt plays a significant part here. But the scientists are not to blame. Scientists are, understandably, not themselves in the business of examining the philosophical problems associated with essentialist questions like, ‘What is “research” … really?’. They have simply helped in providing an answer to a non-problem.

15 Croft, ‘Composition is not Research’, p. 9.

16 The requirement of the UK's REF2014 to provide evidence of Impact and Metrics is a particular case in point.

17 Jean-François Lyotard, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, The Postmodern Condition (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), p. 7.

18 Thomas Nagel, The view from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 9.

19 Nicholas Till, ‘Opus versus output’, Times Higher Education (7 March, 2013).

20 Till, ‘Opus versus output’

21 Take for example Till's Mozart and the Enlightenment (London: Norton, 1992). In the Preface (p. xi) Till outlines how the book began as, ‘a critical study of his [Mozart's] operas in relation to the Enlightenment’. Now, any conceivable process of hypotheses, prediction and experimentation that could be at work here is unlikely to fulfil Popper's criterion of demarcation (see note 33 below). What test could be devised that would attempt to disprove the hypothesis that Mozart's work was influenced by Enlightenment ideals? A letter in Mozart's hand declaring, ‘My music has absolutely nothing to do with the Enlightenment … honest’? Not really, as the influence might have been unconscious or Mozart may have just been wrong about what he was doing. The hypothesis could never be ruled out for good … by anything. Hence, according to Popper, it is unscientific. But does that mean that Till's work is not research? No, I do not believe it does. By my estimation (and I suspect of any musical expert that has read the book) it is research – indeed, valuable research. It just means that Till's work, like composition, is not science.

22 Till, ‘Opus versus output’.

23 Till, ‘Opus versus output’.

24 Till, ‘Opus versus output’. Till cites geometry of perspective in Quattrocento painting, Stanislavsky's ‘Method’ acting, Picasso and Braque's Cubism and Schoenberg's Serialism as technical innovations all deserving of research status.

25 Till, ‘Opus versus output’. Till considers Peri's opera Euridice to be more research worthy than Monteverdi's Orfeo (on the grounds of its being first mover). It is interesting to speculate here: if Till were on the panel of a research grant-giving body and was presented with Monteverdi and Peri, would he give the money to Peri rather than Monteverdi on the basis of (by Till's own criteria) a better research track record? As I argue in the conclusion of this paper, there is no right or wrong in it; but I wonder if Till really wants to live in a world in which something like that happens.

26 The principle of Occam's Razor (see Baggini and Fosl, The Philospher's Toolkit, 105–6) is, if anything, an aesthetic one. Einstein in particular seems to have been motivated by considerations of theoretical ‘elegance’: ‘When the conventional wisdom of physics seemed to conflict with an elegant theory of his, Einstein was inclined to question that wisdom rather than his theory, often to have his stubbornness rewarded’. Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (London: Simon and Schuster, 2007), p. 254.

27 Nagel, The View from Nowhere, p. 11.

28 Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, p. 4.

29 We are not so far from this as we might think. Following the UK's REF2014, the 300-word statements accompanying composition outputs were subsequently published online, separately and decontextualized from the compositional work itself. See http://results.ref.ac.uk/Results/ByUoa/35 (accessed 3 October 2015).

30 Croft, ‘Composition is Not Research’, p. 6.

31 See Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Routledge, 2002). For Popper, not just any hypothesis and experiment will do to constitute science. In his analysis, it is the falsifiability of a system that is to be taken as the criterion of demarcation between science and metaphysics: ‘I shall not require of a scientific system that it shall be capable of being singled out, once and for all, in a positive sense; but I shall require that its logical form shall be such that it can be singled out, by means of empirical tests, in a negative sense: it must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience’, p.18. Not only must it be falsifiable, it must exclude, ‘… precisely those ways of evading falsification … ’, p. 20.

32 Even if a particular composer values technique above all else, that is in itself an aesthetic preference.

33 In science and technology, ‘New for the sake of new’ is not a valid approach either. You do not find people researching ever-new ways to bang in nails or looking for new shapes for wheels. In science, new is only valid if it affects greater efficiency, explanatory power, greater understanding or additional utility.

34 Croft, ‘Composition is Not Research’, p. 7.

35 ‘It was an error [accepting creative practice as research] because many artistic practitioners in universities are not engaged in research – they are simply pursuing their own artistic or professional practice’. Till, ‘Opus versus output’.

36 ‘There are too many instances where the sector still has difficulty distinguishing excellent professional practice from practice with a clear research dimension’. REF2014, Overview Report by Main Panel D and Sub-Panels 27 to 36, Section 37, p. 100. See http://www.ref.ac.uk/panels/paneloverviewreports/ (accessed 3 October 2015).

37 Ryle, The Concept of Mind, p. 18.

38 To maintain that whilst the music may not be reducible to such technical features, that the research content always can be so reduced is, as discussed above, again to make the category mistake of reifying research itself. It is possible to maintain that some research may be reduced in this way, but not that this must be possible for all research. Where it is reducible in this way, I would argue that the research is not then compositional but rather composition-related. Research in composition itself cannot be divorced from aesthetics.

39 For music, the holistic appreciation of its content requires that it be experienced aurally (either by the ear or at least the internal ear). Whether this requires the experience of a complete work, or only part of it (as with ‘moment form’ or ‘open form’ works), depends on the music and the aesthetic.

40 Adopting such a relativist position no doubt provokes important questions as to how, if no one intellectual pursuit may objectively be said to constitute ‘research’ over any other, we can assess the research value of one project over another (for the purposes of grant applications and research review processes). This is a different question from the one addressed here, and answering it is beyond the scope of this paper. (Although it is something I believe the Academy must address, and it would make for an interesting follow-up article). What I will say here, briefly, is two things. Firstly, adopting a fallacious distinction between research and non-research does not solve that problem; it just moves the problem elsewhere and, as I have argued here, with distorting impact. Second, assessing the value of work in the Humanities can never be an issue of objective fact anyway. (It cannot be so in science either for that matter.) According to John Searle: ‘Much of our world view depends on our concept of objectivity and the contrast between the objective and the subjective. Famously, the distinction is a matter of degree, but it is less often remarked that “objective” and “subjective” have several different senses’. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality, pp. 7–8. ‘Objective’ and ‘subjective’ are not distinct categories, but rather extremes at either ends of a continuum. In between these extremes we exercise ‘judgement’. And, as Thomas Nagel points out:,‘because a centerless view of the world is one in which different persons converge, there is a close connection between objectivity and intersubjectivity’. Nagel, The View from Nowhere, p. 63. All we can do is strive through intersubjectively to be as close to the objective end of the spectrum as we can. To do that we must ensure that we have a fair and transparent process of appointing to such positions of responsibility individuals that are as highly and widely experienced as possible, such that they can exercise, without bias, sound judgement in assessing the significance, originality and rigour of the work that is placed before them.

41 For a discussion as to how we might build a world in the absence of objective values, see Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), especially Part III: ‘Cruelty and Solidarity’, 141–98.

42 i.e. How the outputs for such work are assessed for grants and review processes like the UK's REF2014.