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Music, aesthetics of

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-M030-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-M030-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 29, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/music-aesthetics-of/v-1

9. Musical meaning: other aspects

The expression of mental states and the representation of concrete objects and events by no means exhausts the modes of meaning music has been held to possess. Additional meanings that have been ascribed to music fall mostly into one of two broad categories, metaphysical and sociocultural.

Metaphysical meanings include suggestions of a fairly moderate sort, such as that music symbolizes, in addition to or in lieu of individual psychological states, the sphere of feeling generally (Langer 1942), or that music exemplifies general patterns of continuation, growth or development in the natural world (Beardsley 1981), or that music is capable of modelling states of mind in which truths of human existence stand revealed (Sullivan 1927). Metaphysical meanings of a more radical sort have also been posited: Schopenhauer, for example, thought of music as a direct image of the cosmic will, and Nietzsche viewed music as divulging the pain and suffering at the root of earthly existence.

Cultural meanings are implicated in suggestions to the effect that music possesses ideological content, reflecting or endorsing existing political arrangements or social structures, or moral content, personifying and displaying virtues of character, or that it embodies a society’s attitudes towards sex, reason or religion. Unlike the expressive and representational meanings considered above, meanings of this sort, where justifiably ascribed, may be carried by whole genres of music, or by acts or contexts of presentation, rather than by specific works.

Supporters of broader meanings for music must indicate criteria for the possession of such meanings by music, mechanisms by which music may conceivably effect them, and reasons for holding them to be intersubjectively valid. The more extrinsic the kind of meaning proposed as attaching to music, the more difficult it will be to hold both that the understanding of music requires grasp of such meanings, and that such understanding will be primarily experiential in nature.

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Citing this article:
Levinson, Jerrold. Musical meaning: other aspects. Music, aesthetics of, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-M030-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/music-aesthetics-of/v-1/sections/musical-meaning-other-aspects.
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