میکل دوفرن

The main focus of this research is on the phenomenological studies of music from the perspective of the experience of listening to music, with an emphasis on the views of Mikel Dufrenne. This research examines the conditions of musical perception and how phenomenological descriptions of musical experiences play a role in understanding our objective experiences. To answer this question, which is the main goal of the research, with a descriptive-analytical method and a phenomenological approach based on Mikel Dufrenne's point of view, an attempt is made to explain the applications of phenomenology in describing and clarifying the experience of listening to music. Dufrenne considers three stages for aesthetic perception: 1) presence; 2) representation and imagination; and 3) reflection and feeling. According to him, the process of perception is an evolving dialectical process. For this perception, the audience must be active to reach the depth of the aesthetic object and its expression. He concludes that the peak of aesthetic perception is found in the feeling that reveals the way the work is expressed. The findings of this research show that in a phenomenological view, encountering a work of art occurs in the conscious process of recognizing the work, experiencing the work in time and place, the process of execution, and the process of inner development. Although prominent in Dufrenne's account of aesthetic experience in general, it specifically describes the encounter with music as a process of change and development. It also results that in the experience of listening to music, our usual experiences of understanding time and place, body and feeling, and personal and social experience are transformed, and the listener becomes an active participant in this process. Such an experience can not only increase our understanding of performance and theoretical understanding of music but also make the receivers discover not only the work of art but also the process of self-development.

French philosopher and aesthetician, Mikel Dufrenne, is not such well-known in the phenomenological tradition, thought he was more concerned with aesthetics and art than his contemporary phenomenologists. In his book, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, he presents a phenomenological attitude, through merging aesthetics with art, which differentiates him from his contemporaries. In this book,he presents a new phenomenological definition of the a priori and considers the concept of the “affective a priori” as a main principle in the aesthetic experience.  This article attempts to clarify the concept of a priori in Dufrenne’s doctrine, and particularly the role of the affective a priori in the aesthetic experience, as the keys to a better understanding of his idea.