Sound

The written word is sound preserved.

## Sound as wave

##### Plato

"The third organ of perception within us which we have to describe in our survey is that of hearing ... [67b] and the causes whereby its affections are produced. In general, then, let us lay it down that sound is a stroke transmitted through the ears, by the action of the air upon the brain and the blood, and reaching to the soul; and that the motion caused thereby, which begins in the head and ends about the seat of the liver, is “hearing”; and that every rapid motion produces a “shrill” sound, and every slower motion a more “deep” sound; and that uniform motion produces an “even” and smooth sound and the opposite kind of motion a “harsh” sound; ... [67c] and that large motion produces “loud” sound, and motion of the opposite kind “soft” sound. The subject of concords of sounds must necessarily be treated in a later part of our exposition."

##### Aristotle

"There is sound in two ways, as something actual and as a potentiality ... Actual sound always occurs as the sound of something, in relation to something, and in something; for what produces it is an impact ... What is capable of producing sound, then, is that which is capable of moving continuously unified air up to the organ of hearing."

##### Gallileo

"Then there remains the air itself, an element available for sounds, which come to us indifferently from below, above, and all sides—for we reside in the air and its movements displace it equally in all directions. The location of the ear is most fittingly accommodated to all positions in space. Sounds are made and heard by us when the air — without any special property of "sonority" or "transonority" — is ruffled by a rapid tremor into very minute waves and moves certain cartilages of a tympanum in our ear. External means capable of thus ruffling the air are very numerous, but for the most part they may be reduced to the trembling of some body which pushes the air and disturbs it. Waves are propagated very rapidly in this way, and high tones are produced by frequent waves and low tones by sparse ones."

##### American National Standards Institute (ANSI)

"(a) Oscillation in pressure, stress, particle displacement, particle velocity etc., propagated in a medium with internal forces (for example elastic or viscous) or the superposition of such propagated oscillation" or "(b) Auditory sensation evoked by the oscillation described in (a)."

##### Goldstein

"*Physical definition*: Sound is *pressure changes* in the air or other medium ... A sound stimulus occurs when the movements or vibrations of an object cause pressure changes in air, water, or any other elastic medium that surrounds the object.

## Sound as perception

##### Goldstein

"*Perceptual definition*: Sound is the experience we have when we hear."

##### O'Callaghan

"Sounds are public objects of auditory perception. When a car starts it makes a sound; when hands clap the result is a sound. Sounds are what we hear during episodes of genuine hearing. Sounds have properties such as pitch, timbre, and loudness. But this tells us little about what sort of thing a sound is -- which metaphysical category it belongs to. This is the question I wish to answer."

## Sound as hearing

##### Grimshaw-Aagaard

"One other objection I would like to raise to the standard definitions of sound is that they neither explain various auditory phenomena nor do they support the phenomenology of our everyday hearing."

## References

1. ↑ Plato. 1925. *Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9* translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg031.perseus-eng1:67a
2. ↑ Aristotle, and Christopher John Shields. 2016. *De anima.*
3. ↑ Galilei, Galileo, 1623 [1957], Il Saggiatore (The Assayer), Rome. Translated in *Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo*, Stillman Drake (trans.), New York: Anchor Books, 1957. 276.
4. ↑ American National Standard, *Acoustical Terminology*. ANSI/ASA S1.1-2013.
5. ↑ Goldstein, E. Bruce. 2010. *Sensation and perception*. Belmont (CA): Wadsworth. 261.
6. ↑ Goldstein, E. Bruce. 2010. *Sensation and perception*. Belmont (CA): Wadsworth. 261.
7. ↑ Nudds, Matthew, and Casey O'Callaghan. 2009. *Sounds and perception: new philosophical essays*. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 26.
8. ↑ Mark, Grimshaw-Aagaard. “What Is Sound Studies?” In *The Routledge Companion to Sound Studies*, pg. 19. 1st ed. Routledge, 2019.

## External Links

* (Sounds) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy