Abstract

The paper presents an account of the relevance of art music for the human form of life. In the first part it develops a theory of the human form of life by referring to central aspects of the philosophies of Aristotle, Kant and Hegel. The human form of life is reconstructed in terms of the classical conception of the human being as a rational animal, which is reformulated in the light of the neo-Aristotelian concept of living freedom. With Hegel this conception is reformulated as a conception of the human being as an indeterminate living being, since human nature is concretized in different ways in the respective historical contexts. The second part then formulates a concept of the role of art in the human way of life, referring to Hegel and Adorno. The last part reflects on current discussions about the intermedial constitution of the arts which is then made productive for a concept of art music.