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Casati, R., Dokic, J., & Di Bona, E. (2005-2020). Sounds. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved October 27, 2021, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sounds/.   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 11/02/2024, 10:09

In rejecting the idea that sounds are proximal stimuli (cf. (O'Shaughnessy 2009)), a number of arguments are used including:

  • if sound is at the hearer's position then the number of sounds = the number of listeners
  • Failing this, then a single sound can exist in multiple locations

Also rejected is that, while the fact that the sound of something distant sounds different if one were close up (an argument for sound as proximal stimuli), that we have no notion of distal volume or loudness of a sound—we do. A motorcycle at a distance can still be judged to be loud.

The fault, apparently, is that the proximal stimulus theory does not "distinguish between source and informational channel." Thus, the information derived from a sound wave includes not only information about the original sound wave but also filtering in the medium, reflections, absorption, echoes and so on.

Another fault is that our everyday experience locates sound where the sound wave source is.



O'Shaughnessy, B. (2009). The location of a perceived sound. In M. Nudds & C. O'Callaghan (Eds), Sounds & Perception (pp. 111–125). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
In dicussing medial theories, early proponents (or at least forebearers) of the wave view of sound are noted including Aristotle, Galileo, and Descartes who all stated that sound is a movement in air. Thus modern acoustics and the standard definition of sound as a sound wave.

Arguments against the medial/wave view include:

  • the existence of infrasound and ultrasound (the same physical nature as other sound waves but not sensed)
  • a sound wave does not necessarily depend on the physical property of the sounding object (cf loudspeakers)
  • as with proximal theories, medial theories do not locate sounds where our everyday experience would locate them (at the source and so at a distance and unmoving)
  • if sounds were sound waves where then is the information contained in them that informs about the sound source, its distance, the sound's loudness, and so on—everything that we experience in everyday perception of sound?
Within distal theories of sound, there are four main concepts:
  • Sound is a property. Like colours, smells, and shapes, sounds are secondary qualities being sensory qualities. One might object that an object does not have a sound—unlike the object that has a smell, colour, or shape—rather the object produces a sound. Another objection is that sounds are dynamic and "intrinsically temporal entities" and, unlike colours and shapes, are individuals.
  • Sound is a located event. Sounds are events that happen to material objects. They are located at the material source and can be identified with, or at least supervene on, the vibrations of that object. A medium is required to transmit the sound to a listener but is not required for the sound' existence—a tuning fork in a vacuum still produces a sound; it simply cannot be transmitted to us. In this theory, sound is also an "intrinsically temporal entity." Nevertheless, sounds can also be mislocated, as with echoes, and the Doppler effect might suggest that sound is in fact medial. However, a proponent of this distal theory would simply argue that it is the medium that affects our perception of pitch change—to anyone remaining with the sound source, the sound does not change. Other objections are typically countered by the charge that the objector confuses sound with a sound wave.
  • Sound is a relational event. Sounds are events involving both source and medium. Developed from Aristotle's statement "everything that makes a sound does so by the impact of something against something else, across a space filled with air" (De Anima II.8 420b15). This is usually taken as an argument for the medial view of sound as a sound wave but has been interpreted by O'Callaghan to mean that sound waves are not the sounds themselves but the effects of the sounds. Thus, the medium is required for sound and so sound does not exist in a vacuum.
  • Sound is the disposition of an object to vibrate upon being stimulated. In this way it is like colour which might be explained as the disposition of an object to reflect white light in a particular way. Without vibration, objects may well have sounds but they cannot be heard. Hitting, or 'thwacking,' an object is aking to shining white light upon an object—it reveals the sound as the light reveals the colour. An objection might be that, in fact, there are many dispositions to vibrating/sounding when thwacked as illustrated byt the different vibratory characteristics of an amplitude envelope. Equally, there are many types of thwackers that can be used, each eliciting a different vibration and sound. What also of the sound that lasts once the vibrational disposition has ceased? We also hear sounds as unfolding over time which is more process and event than disposition.
Erlmann, V. (2000). Reason and resonance: A history of modern aurality. New York: Zone Books.   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 15/02/2024, 08:01
Plato and the atomists thought that sound was a stream of air particles or even "special atoms" issuing from the source.
Lunn, P., & Hunt, A. 2013, July 6–10, Phantom signals: Erroneous perception observed during the audification of radio astronomy data. Paper presented at International Conference on Auditory Display, Łódź, Poland.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 14/11/2013, 13:11
The greatest reporting of phantom signals was when no example signals were played beforehand. The authors thus claim that phantom signals are a form of pareidolia (bring order out of chaos, seeing faces in clouds etc.).
Riddoch, M. 2012, September 9–14, On the non-cochlearity of the sounds themselves. Paper presented at International Computer Music Conference, Ljubljana.   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 23/09/2020, 21:36

Riddoch proposes three types of non-cochlear sound:

  • Synaesthetic -- the perception of sound via stimulation of another sense.
  • Infrasonic sound -- sound waves below 20Hz can be detected by the skin and the chest cavity resonates at 80Hz and below. Riddoch also points to the example of profoundly deaf (from birth) percussionist Evelyn Glennie who maintains that hearing is a specialized form of touch (Glennie 1993).
  • Auditory imagination -- including memory, imagination, hallucination, dreaming which all excite the auditory cortex.



Glennie, E. (1993). Hearing essay. Retrieved April 28, 2014, from https://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing-essay/
Schrimshaw, W. (2013). Non-cochlear sound: On affect and exteriority. In M. Thompson & I. Biddle (Eds), Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience (pp. 27–43). New York: Bloomsbury Academic.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 09/01/2014, 10:03
Following Deluze and Guattari, Scrimshaw claims the equivalence of sound and affect.
Scruton, R. (2009). Sounds as secondary objects and pure events. In M. Nudds & C. O'Callaghan (Eds), Sounds & Perception (pp. 50–68). Oxford: Oxford University Press.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 07/02/2014, 14:10
Secondary qualities are the way things feel -- not primary qualities that are physical and can be objectively measured. Secondary qualities allow us to discriminate between phenomena such as sounds.
Scruton supports his view that sounds are separate from the objects that emit them with examples such as radio and recording -- acousmatic sound. In such a case, sounds can be grouped (streamed) together coherently without reference to their physical origin.
To Scruton, sound's independence from the physical world leads to a coherence (grouping, streaming) that is a 'virtual causality'. It bears no relation to the process by which sounds are formed.
Strawson, P. F. (1971). Individuals: An essay in descriptive metaphysics. London: Methuen. (Original work published 1959).   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 21/02/2024, 09:38
Having shown that it is possible to conceive of a sound in a No-Space world, Strawson needs to deal with the idea of a sound unperceived by one person but perceived by another because the sound (and the other) is in a different place. Strawson admits that this particular of place cannot be contained within the particular of temporality, the particular of place must be stored somewhere with the sound and so he looks for an "analogy of space" that directly describes distance if not direction (the two components of an auditory spatial particular). One wonders why he just does not throw in the towel and admit immediately the impossibility of aspatial sounds (this, after all, is the aim of his thought experiment). He is also constrained by assuming the existence of only two dimensions within which particulars can be 'housed': time and space.
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