Article ID: CBB001552597

On Equal Temperament: Tuning, Modernity and Compromise (2015)

unapi

In this article, I use Stengers' (2010) concepts of `factish', `requirements' and `obligations', as well as Latour's (1993) critique of modernity, to interrogate the rise of Equal Temperament as the dominant system of tuning for western music. I argue that Equal Temperament is founded on an unacknowledged compromise which undermines its claims to rationality and universality. This compromise rests on the standardization which is the hallmark of the tuning system of Equal Temperament, and, in this way, it is emblematic of Latour's definition of modernity. I further argue that the problem of the tuning of musical instruments is one which epitomizes the modern distinction between the natural and the social. In turn, this bears witness to what Whitehead calls the `bifurcation of nature'. Throughout this article, using the work of Stengers and Latour, I seek to use tuning as a case study which allows social research to talk both of the natural and of the social aspects of music and tuning, without recourse to essentialism or simple social construction. In this way, my argument seeks to avoid bifurcating nature.

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Authors & Contributors
Seguin, Eve
Latour, Bruno
Simons, Massimiliano
Lord, Laurent-Olivier
Liu, Yaya
Sismondo, Sergio
Journals
Social Studies of Science
Perspectives on Science
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Ziran Kexueshi Yanjiu (Studies in the History of Natural Sciences)
Theoria (0495-4548)
Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric
Publishers
State University of New York at Binghamton
Concepts
Philosophy of science
Science studies, theoretical works
Philosophers of science, modern
Actor-network theory
Sociology of knowledge
Science and politics
People
Latour, Bruno
Kuhn, Thomas S.
Heidegger, Martin
Zhu, Zaiyu
Stumpf, Carl
Stengers, Isabelle
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century, early
20th century
Places
Germany
France
China
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