摘要：Any consideration of pre-Enlightenment art, particularly music, presents similar difficulties to taking on any of the so-called “aesthetic experiences” of non-Western societies. The globalizing concept of “aesthetics” inevitably becomes entangled with other notions of greater historical and ideological charge that configure a contemporary worldview—artistic individuality, creative will, and “the work of art,” among others. Such notions presuppose the independence of the “aesthetic phenomenon” from its social uses and ignore cultural and political factors. Beginning with the modern secular era, these phenomena have acquired a status that is ontologically and methodologically differentiated from other spheres of social life. They are analytically fragmented into diverse aesthetic manifestations (music, painting, sculpture, theater, etc.) and are treated separately by different disciplines that privilege formal and technical attributes. As a result, their integral relation to culture is lost.
