Jerrold Levinson

In this paper I address the issue of narrativity in music. The central question is the extent to which pure instrumental music in the classical tradition can or should be understood as narrative, that is, as narrating a story of some kind. I am interested in the varying potential and aptness for narrative construal of different sorts of instrumental music, and in what the content of such narratives might plausibly be thought to be. But ultimately I explore, at greater length, an alternative way of construing musical process, namely, as dramatic rather than narrative in nature, following the lead of two musicologists, Anthony Newcomb and Fred Maus. After a comparison of the respective merits of narrative and dramatic construals of music, the paper concludes with an illustrative reading, in dramatic mode, of part of the opening movement of Schubert's Piano Sonata in A minor, D. 845.

Stephen Yablo has attempted recently to revive the notion of contingent identity, identifying this with a relation of L coincidence between objects that are "distinct by nature but the same in the circumstances" (296). Yablo argues convincingly for the need of essentialist metaphysics to recognize some relation of this sort, a relation of "intimate identity-like connections between things" (296) if it is to acknowledge properly the intuitive difference between (i) the nonidentity of a bust B and a hunk of wax H of which it is composed, and (ii) the nonidentity of the hunk H and the Treaty of Versailles. (i) and (ii) are clearly not on the same level. Even though B, like the Treaty of Versailles, fails to be strictly identical to H, it is very closely, and quite specially, related to it. What this relation is is certainly worth a general inquiry

As readers of this book will discover, from several disputes with me contained in its pages, Scruton and I are not in accord on a number of matters in the philosophy of music. Notwithstanding that, and more generally the fact that the book is controlled by a phenomenological-idealist perspective on music that I regard as fundamentally misplaced, in my estimation The Aesthetics of Music is the most valuable work to date on the subject of its title, one that addresses that subject in its full range and complexity, and one that is full of insight and instruction, both musical and philosophical, at every turn. It is must reading for anyone concerned with philosophical reflection on music.

Je voudrais ici réfléchir, de façon provisoire et exploratoire, à la question de savoir en quels sens il est possible de dire que certaines émotions ne pouvaient pas exister avant que certaines œuvres d’art ou certains genres artistiques n’existent, ou qu’elles ne pourraient pas exister s’ils n’existaient pas. Mon but est donc de mieux comprendre le rôle que les arts peuvent jouer, à la fois dans la construction, dans la conception et dans la communication de certaines émotions – émotions qu’on pourrait alors considérer à juste titre comme véritablement originales et inédites.

[Derek Matravers] Jerrold Levinson maintains that he is a realist about aesthetic properties. This paper considers his positive arguments for such a view. An argument from Roger Scruton, that aesthetic realism would entail the absurd claim that many aesthetic predicates were ambiguous, is also considered and it is argued that Levinson is in no worse position with respect to this argument than anyone else. However, Levinson cannot account for the phenomenon of aesthetic autonomy: namely, that we cannot be put in a position to make an aesthetic judgement by testimony alone. Finally, Levinson's views on the ontology of aesthetic properties are considered and found wanting. /// [Jerrold Levinson] Being an aesthetic realist is hard work. Derek Matravers has raised a number of concerns for the brand of aesthetic realism that I have defended in the past, and that I continue to defend, albeit with modification. Much turns on the nature of aesthetic properties, and on the reasons for acknowledging their existence. I here try to provide further illumination on both scores, suggesting in particular that many aesthetic properties can be viewed as manifest higher-order ways of appearing. Toward the end of my discussion the question of whether or not aesthetic properties are response-dependent is addressed, and I offer the tentative conclusion that some are, and some are not.