October 22, 1934

Peter Kivy (October 22, 1934 to May 6, 2017) was a philosopher at Rutgers University. His particular focus throughout his career was music, and most of his many books dealt with that aesthetic topic. One of these books was titled

Music, Language, and Cognition: And Other Essays in the Aesthetics of Music (2007 is the edition from which we quote):

"When I see a cat, I take it that I am in the conscious state of seeing the cat. But I also take it that I am not necessarily conscious that I am seeing the cat.

"However I may also become aware of my seeing the cat. In other words, my conscious state may have as its intentional object the cat, or it may have as its intentional object my conscious state of seeing the cat. Assuming as I do an epistemic view of perception, I call my perceiving of the cat conscious cognition and my awareness of perceiving the cat as the intentional object, self-conscious cognition.

"Both kinds of cognition are at work in enjoying and appreciating music."


Brian Leiter brought to my attention this appreciation of Kivy:
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"After earning a BA and MA in Philosophy from Michigan in Philosophy, an MA from Yale in the History of Music, and a PhD in Philosophy from Columbia, Peter taught briefly at Brooklyn College, before moving to the Rutgers Newark campus in 1967. In 1978 Peter moved to the Rutgers New Brunswick campus where he remained until his retirement in 2015.

"Over the span of his 49 year career, Peter's countless lectures, 90 articles, numerous reviews, and 23 books--including 18 single-authored books published with Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Princeton University Press, and Cornell University Press, many of which were translated into Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Korean--established Peter as a giant in the field of aesthetics, and as the world's greatest Philosopher of Music. Peter's books were known for their clarity, insight, and depth of understanding, as well as their biting criticisms and sarcastic wit. Peter often commented on how much he loved to write philosophy, Indeed, Peter's zeal for writing philosophy was almost an addiction, and he would become noticeably upset if he hadn't written anything for a few days.

"Peter's many honors and awards included a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Deems Taylor Award of the Amercian Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers for the best book on music (The Corded Shell), an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Goldsmiths' College of the University of London and, most recently, the prestigious 2016 American Society for Aesthetics Monograph Prize for his book De Gustibus: Arguing About Taste and Why We Do It (OUP, 2015).

"Peter was a real mensch. He had a great sense of humor and a big heart, especially, for the many students that he mentored over the years in both Philosophy and Music. ....  Peter was rightly proud of the fact that a number of philosophy graduate students landed jobs in part because they developed a competency in aesthetics under his guidance.

"Peter was an erudite scholar and lover of music, who kept a clavichord in his Philosophy Department office. He was also an accomplished oboist who studied under tutelage of the great Ronald "Ronnie" Roseman, a faculty member of the Mannes College of Music, the Julliard School, and the Yale School of Music, and acting principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic in the late 1970s. Peter played the oboe with many groups in many venues in New York City as well as Cape Cod where he took up summer residence.

"Besides writing philosophy and playing the oboe, Peter loved a great scotch and Manhattans (or two!). He was a cherished member of the Department, and a personal friend. I shall miss his endless supply of jokes, and dinners at Tumulty's Pub with him and Peter Klein."
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Our last quote is a great example of the clarity and strength of Peter Kivy's intellect:

"‘But, lo and behold, when we enter the realm of philosophy of literature, we discover that we do not really know what enthralls us about narrative fiction. We do not know why story-telling so enthralls us. And, again, the philosopher’s instinct is to find something beyond the story, hidden in the story, which, on first reflection, we have missed, that does enthrall us, and for reasons that we do understand. And, not surprisingly, the philosopher comes up with knowledge. For, as Aristotle long ago put it: “learning things is most enjoyable, not only for philosophers but for others equally, though they have little experience of it” (Poetics IV).

"Well, this horse won’t run either. I by no means have given up the idea that silently read fiction can be a source of knowledge. But I have become more and more convinced that it is a philosopher’s obsession to place so much emphasis on it in the philosophy of literature. The story is the thing. And until we understand our enthrallment with story-telling, we will not understand literary fiction.’"

And until we understand our enthrallment with story-telling, we will not understand literary fiction.