Reason and Resonance: A History of Modern Aurality

Jul 6, 2026

Reason and Resonance: A History of Modern Aurality by Veit Erlmann traces how modern ways of hearing emerged through scientific ideas, philosophical metaphors, and cultural politics. The book contrasts resonance with reflection and develops “introaudition” as an alternative model of mind and self-awareness. Drawing on examples from early modern thought through the twentieth century, it connects auditory perception of pitch, listening practices, and shifting theories of the ear to broader disputes about reason, subject–object relations, and certainty in modernity.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages422

Reading Time17 h 43 min

Introduction: The String and the Mirror

The Great Entente

Point of Audition

Good Vibes

Water, Sex, Noise

Hearing Oneself Hear

The Labyrinth of Reason

Rhythm and Clues

Echoless

Notes

Glossary

Index

Reason and ResonanceA History of Modern Aurality Veit Erlmann Z.ON E BOOKS ·N E W YORK 2010 ◎2010 Veit Erlmann ZONE BOOKS 1226 Prospect Avenue Brooklyn,NY 11218 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,stored in aretrieval system,or transmitted in any form or by anymeans,including electronic,mechanical,photocopyingmicrofilming,recording,or otherwise(except for thatcopying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the publicpress),without written permission from the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America. Distrbuted by The MIT Press,Cambridge,Massachusetts,and London,England Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Erlmann,Veit. Reason and resonance :a history of modern aurality/Veit Erlmann. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-935408-04-8 1.Auditory perception.2.Listening. 3.Sound.4.Culture-Philosophy.s.Hearing-History. 6.Audiology-History.I.Title. BF251,E752010 128'.3-DC22 2009052201 | I am the resonance and the tone. <br>—Michel Serres,Les cing sen | | --- | | | | | | | Contents Introduction:The String and the Mirror 9 I The Great Entente:Anatomy,Rationalism,and the Quest for Reasonance 29 Ⅱ Point of Audition:Claude Perrault's Du bruit(1680)and the Politics of Pleasure in the Ancien Régime 69 I Good Vibes:Nerves,Air,and Happinessduring the French Enlightenment 111 IV Water,Sex,Noise:Early German Romanticismand the Metaphysics of Listening 151 v Hearing Oneself Hear:The Autoresonant Selfand the Expansion of the Audible 185 VI The Labyrinth of Reason:Hermann von Helmholtz'sPhysiological Acoustics and the Loss of Certainty 217 VII Rhythm and Clues:Time and the Acoustic Unconscious,ca.1900 271 VI Echoless:The Pathology of Freedom and the Crisis ofTwentieth-Century Listening 307 Notes 343 Glossary 399 Index 405 INTRODUCTION The String and the Mirror The great encyclopedist,essayist,and music amateur DenisDiderot had a penchant for strong analogies,such as this one fromhis Entretien entre d'Alembert et Diderot,written in 1769: The sensitive vibrating string oscillates and resonates a long timeafter one has plucked it.It's this oscillation,this sort of inevitableresonance,that holds the present object,while our understanding isbusy with the quality which is appropriate to it.But vibrating stringshave yet another property—to make other strings quiver.And thusthe first idea recalls a second,and these two a third,then all threea fourth,and so it goes,without our being able to set a limit to theideas that are aroused and linked in a philosopher who meditates orwho listens to himself in silence and darkness. Diderot's scandalous assertion-so scandalous,in fact,that pub-lication of the Entretien had to wait until 1830-seems to be atodds with the more commonplace image of the philosopher assomeone who deliberates and ponders with cool detachment,whosearches for the truth by completely withdrawing from the world,and whose intellect seems to be akin to a mirror.²Ever since RenéDescartes and John Locke invented an entity called "the mind,"thinking has come to be understood as reflection.Just as themirror reflects the light waves without its own substance becom-ing affected,the mind mimetically represents the outside worldwhile at the same time remaining separate from it. Resonance is of course the complete opposite of the reflective, distancing mechanism of a mirror.While reason implies the dis-junction of subject and object,resonance involves their conjunc-tion.Where reason requires separation and autonomy,resonanceentails adjacency,sympathy,and the collapse of the boundarybetween perceiver and perceived.Resonance is found in manyareas,whether it is a current within an electrical circuit thatsurges back and forth in step with the frequency of a signal comingfrom the outside or the representation of a normal state of a mol-ecule by a co

FAQs

How does the book distinguish resonance from reflection?

Reflection is framed as a distancing mechanism that keeps subject and object separate, while resonance is presented as a conjunction that collapses their boundary through adjacency and sympathy.

What is “introaudition” as used in the introduction?

“Introaudition” is introduced as an analogy for listening-into-the-self, reworking associations between consciousness, self-reflection, and auditory experience.

How does the author connect theories of hearing to broader intellectual history?

The text links changing scientific accounts of the ear—especially ideas about resonance in cochlear structures—with philosophical and cultural shifts from the seventeenth century to the early twentieth century.

Jul 6, 2026

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