Knowledge Bank

Music appears frequently in the writing of political philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, and Friedrich Nietzsche. For this reason, music should become an important consideration for how we think about our political existence. While Plato and Aristotle appear to be more concerned than Nietzsche with identifying the most successful means of political interaction, the qualities of life Nietzsche seeks for the individual most skillfully navigate the Plato-Aristotle dialectic of philosophy and politics, and produce a lifestyle that is most conducive to successful political interaction. Nietzsche's understanding of and appreciation for what music offers the individual demonstrates the importance of musical events to political co-existence.