Dissertation of Yordan Banev for the award of the educational and scientific degree “Doctor”.

Turning to “musical thought” requires methodological clarity. We need an approach capable of revealing essential sonic dispositions that encompass the forms of diverse spiritual domains, united under common names such as ancient music and patristic chant. The need for a correct methodology arises from the speculative tendency to identify the thinking of music with the thinking about music.

With this in mind, the approach in the dissertation is phenomenological, but situated within the sphere of the musical itself, which makes it specifically different from philosophical phenomenological methods. Through this approach, the conceptual examination of musical thought refers to the thought of a life disclosed in music — a musically lived wholeness that can be seen only from within itself.

Consequently, the term “musical thought” will conceptually refer to the thinking of (within) musical phenomena themselves. It will be understood as the thinking of music (cogitatio musicae) in the same way that “vocal thought” does not mean the thinking about singing and singers, but the thinking that occurs within singing itself.

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