Russian Philosophy of Music and the Experience of Phenomenological Perception: Synesthesia and Psychodelia

Abstract

The main object of the article is a philosophical interpretation of the phenomenon of musical synesthesia from the point of view of the philosophy of music by N. O. Lossky and the phenomenology of M. Merleau-Ponty. The original experience of listening to music by S. A. Kuryokhin is taken as an example. The first part of the work describes the tradition and formation of the Russian philosophy of music, and as a further research instrument, the main aspects of the philosophy of music by N. O. Lossky and the phenomenology of M. Merleau-Ponty are considered. Special attention is paid to three modes of intuitive knowledge: sensual, intellectual and mystical. Lossky writes that the first two modes are located and work in the world, while the mystical intuitive mode transgresses into the Superworld. A similar scheme of perception can be traced in the existential phenomenology of M. Merleau-Ponty. The state of this transgression, transsubjectivity, musical synesthesia can be traced in the theurgic synesthesiс music of A. N. Scriabin. In this context, the musical phenomenon of S. A. Kuryokhin is considered, especially his album “Sparrow Oratorium”, which, inherits the traditions of synesthesia, transgresses it to another level — the level of psychedelia, metanoia, schizophrenic psychosis. Kuryokhin's music evokes an experience where emptiness becomes the center of being, where, due to the death of the ego and rebirth, a person finds his true essence.